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Come here.

Closer.

There.

That should be close enough. I have a secret I want to share with you. It involves zero guilt and tons more time on your hands. The secret is this, “There ain’t no shame in the faking it game.”

I read a food blog I adore recently that condemned store bought pie crust. I love that blog. This ain’t that blog. I like homemade pie crust. I like homemade cookie dough. I like my house vacuumed frequently. I like to read after dinner. But we all know there simply isn’t enough time in the day for all of our “likes” and “wants.” Heck. There is barely enough time for the “needs.”

So let’s fake us some homemade cookie bars, shall we?

I won’t tell if you don’t.

I was so pleasantly surprised how well these cookie bars turned out. I do highly recommend using parchment paper, because the bars are too sticky to get out otherwise.

Ingredients:

2 packages of sugar cookie dough logs or 1 package of the preflattened sugar cookie dough (I prefer the preflattened kind made by Nestle. It ends up being cheaper, but the logs make a prettier cookie bar)
1/3 cup caramel sauce
1/3 cup toffee bits
Sea salt
Parchment paper

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Place parchment paper in an 11 X 7 baking dish. Take a log of sugar cookie dough and press it into place over the parchment paper or lay one layer of your flat cookie dough and push it into the corners of the parchment paper (depending upon which premade sugar cookie dough you purchased). Put into the oven and bake for fifteen minutes.

Remove from oven. Microwave caramel for 25 seconds to soften and make it easier to pour. Measure it out. Pour over slightly cooked cookie dough. Sprinkle the toffee bits on top. Now sprinkle sea salt over top. Just give it a nice dusting.

I have a hand-cranked dispenser from Costco, so I turn it seven to ten times over the caramel.

Now break up your remaining cookie dough log over the top if you bought the logs or simply place the other cookie sheet over the top, if you bought the preflattened kind.

Put the whole thing back into the oven and bake for twenty five minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool for one hour before cutting into bars. I lift the parchment paper with the cookie bar in place and then lay it on my counter before I cut this into bars with my pizza cutter.

Now eat this sinfully simple (or would it be simply sinful dessert?). Either way, it is good. It is quick. It is easy. This is my husband’s favorite cookie lately. It is equally good served warm with vanilla ice cream on top drizzled with caramel sauce.

Just bake it. (I am pretty sure Nike did not mean bake a million calories into a dessert when they made that slogan, but I will oblige them by running to the stove the moment these babies are done. That’s gotta burn a zillion calories, right?).

I have been really sick. How sick? Well, I have not had a glass of wine since Christmas. That’s how sick. I know. Who knew it was possible? It has been thirteen days of a cold with a fever and I am now beginning to think it is time to see a doctor.

Or not.

We’ll see.

It makes for interesting dreams.

But in the meantime, my sweet mother brought me over the nicest gift in the world. It was a container of pie crust cookies.

Pie crust cookies happen to be my most favorite thing in the whole wide world. My mother and grandmother used to make them all through my childhood. They start with homemade pie crust dough (which is why I never make them). The pie crust dough is rolled out then generously sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar. Then cut into long irregular shapes, punched with a fork, and put into the oven to bake. Hence the clever name, “pie crust cookies.” I don’t know where or how they came up with that.

When she delivered these, I almost cried in my delirious state.

They have been what has kept me going these last few days.

Well, that and a glorious little product called ~~heaven~~ Sudafed.

Have you ever had these delightful little treats? And why does everything taste so much better when your mom makes it? What’s your favorite thing to have when you are sick? Spaghetti for some reason also always makes me feel better. It is what we are having for dinner tonight.

It’s the little things: anything that makes you feel better when you are sick.

Thanks Mom.

Gnome Lover

Stumbling through life while still having fun

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It’s The Little Things: Pie Crust Cookies