defn: a drab, unattractive, and generally uninteresting girl or woman. Simple and modest; unadorned; basic.

I’m in no mood for fancy. I’m fancied out.

The sky is an ever-present grey leaving a dusting of scattered flurries. It’s the depths of January and it seems that winter might never end. Fancy has come and gone in a Christmas season of parties, family gatherings, trips down south with too many margaritas and an abundance of rich food (which I pretended to negate by enthusiastic jaunts into the ocean battling the waves on a surf board). Now I must face the reality of treadmill running and bundling up in the warmest jacket on earth should I desire to leave my abode.

I’ve traded fancy for Plain Jane. Festive frilly skirts and bikinis for my favorite blanket, Ugg slippers, and according to Abercrombie my perfect butt fleece sweats (but if you ask me, they seriously over-promised on that one). It’s time for comfort and the familiar. Not only in getting back into a familiar routine but in food as well. Thankfully, I have a couple of recipes that suit this mood.  And what could be more comforting than a simple, family favorite, recipe for cookies?

Although the ever-omniscient Wikipedia defines a Plan Jane as being generally uninteresting, I think there can be beauty in the familiar and basic. In the unadorned. The familiar can bring us comfort and warmth like an evening spent curled up on the couch, in my unfancy sweats and ponytail, with my loved one. And that in itself can be beautiful.

Skor Bar Cookies

family recipe

• 1 C butter at room temperature
• 3/4 C brown sugar
• 2/3 C sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 Tbsp milk
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 2 C flour
• 1 1/4 C large rolled oats
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 5 Skor bars broken into pieces
• 1 C slivered almonds

• Whisk together the flour, oats, baking soda and salt.
• Beat butter and both sugars until light and fluffy, a couple of minutes. Then beat in the egg until very well combined, about one minute. Beat in both the milk and vanilla until well combined and the mixture is light and creamy.
• Add the flour mixture to butter mixture and blend well.
• Stir in the Skor bar bits and almonds.
• Chill the dough about two hours or overnight (this gives the butter a chance to firm up again and your cookies will spread less. It also gives the eggs and everything a chance to meld together and should give your cookies more “depth”).
• At this point you can either roll your cookie dough into about 24 balls and freeze or…
• Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
• Place cookies on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper (or greased if you prefer that) and bake 8-10 minutes. Cool for a few minutes then remove and cool completely on a cooling rack.

Notes:

• These cookies are best when not over baked as they will dry out on you.
• Also, it’s super important to have some kind of de-sticking (new word?) agent on your baking sheets or the Skor bars will glue on and your cookies will be next to  impossible to remove. They’ll still taste good…. they just won’t look pretty.
• As you can tell from the pictures these cookies don’t spread a lot. If you want a thinner cookies decrease the flour and oats by 1/4 C each.
• If you make about 24 cookies, each cookie will have approximately 235 calories, 14 g of fat, and 30 g of carbs. These are not New Year’s Resolution friendly but they taste oh-so-good when you’re lounging in front of the TV watching Modern Family, fireplace on in the background (of course you, as well as I, have already exercised like CRAZY earlier in the day… ran countless miles so as to fully enjoy a few grams of fat) .