No wonder they look so good 
and explains why peanut butter cookies are often tasteless.
The recipes I remember are from Skippy. One doesn’t have any flour, the other just 1 Tablespoon to 1-1/2 peanut butter. Neither use brown sugar. I bet that adds a nice rich flavor. I like that your recipe goes into the freezer until baking. Keith isn’t a peanut butter cookie fan & I only eat one or two at a time so I rarely bake them, about once every 10 years.
To recap your ingredients:
1-1/2 cups peanut butter
1 cup flour
2 cups of brown sugar
2 eggs
12 tablespoons of just-melted butter
1-1/2 teaspoons of baking soda
1 teaspoon of vanilla
1 cup of coarsely chopped peanuts
Do you use chunky or creamy peanut butter?
Are the dry ingredients sifted together or is everything tossed into the bowl at once? How long & at what temp should I bake them?
Do you ever bake them without the peanut pieces? I don’t normally keep peanuts in the house. I always, almost always, have chunky peanut butter as well as the rest of the ingredients.
DR Jane - The recipe I use is from Pam Anderson's "CookSmart" cookbook.
Here's the basic procedure:
In a small bowl, combine
1 cup all-purpose flour and
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda, then set aside.
In a medium bowl, mix
1-1/2 cups creamy peanut butter (she recommends Skippy),
2 cups packed light brown sugar, and
12 tablespoons (1-1/2 sticks) unsalted butter melted just until warm, not hot, until smooth.
In a small bowl, mix
2 eggs and
1 teaspoon vanilla, then add to peanut butter mixture, and beat with a rubber spatula until smooth. Add flour mixture and
1 cup coarsely chopped to peanut butter mixture, and stir until well combined.
Line a 9"x13" pan with plastic wrap. Using a 2 oz. (1/4-cup) spring-action ice-cream scoop to form dough balls and scoop into pan. (About 14 balls will fit in first layer.) Lay a sheet of plastic wrap on top and make another layer. Freeze until solid, about 30 minutes.
Place oven racks in the upper-middle and lower-middle positions and preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
Place 9 cookies on each sheet. After about 15 minutes, rotate cookie sheets top to bottom, and front to back. Continue cooking cookies for another 3 to 5 minutes until cookies are golden but not dark brown. Remove cookie sheets from oven, and place on cooling racks for at least five minutes before sliding the cookies (still on the parchment) off the cookie sheets to cool completely.
*I use a 1 oz. scoop to make a smaller cookie, and adjust the cooking time down to 10-12 minutes total.
