Tasty cookie

I read way too many cooking magazines. In fact, I read so many that I often forget whether that new salad recipe I wanted to try was in Light and Tasty or perhaps Food Network Magazine. And did I see a recipe for that new pasta dish in a fall edition or a spring edition of Southern Living? Or was it at Christmas?

Until recently, I used to keep the entire magazine on my cedar chest. I'd fold back the magazine to reveal the recipe I wanted to cook. But what if there were two magazines in the book I wanted to try? And what do you do when the stack of magazines gets way too high?

I eventually started tearing pages out of magazines that I don't want to keep, and now I have a stack of ripped out pages I keep tucked away in one of my cooking notebooks. One day I'll get organized. One day ...

While thumbing through a stack of these pages recently, I found a recipe for Oatmeal Toffee Cookies that I had saved from the December 2008 edition of Cooking Light. My children enjoy recipes made with toffee bits (found with the chocolate chips at the grocery store), so I had saved the recipe, intending to try it after Christmas. That was a year and a half ago. Oh well ...

I finally made the cookies last week, and, as predicted, my children loved them. So did my husband. The buttery taste of the toffee is delicious with the oatmeal. It's a simple recipe that mixes up in a just a few minutes. I love having recipes like this that I can make at the last minute for dessert or a bedtime snack. Nothing fancy, nothing complicated.

The cookies didn't last long at my house, and I've had requests for more already.


Oatmeal Toffee Cookies

• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour*
• 1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 large egg
• 1/3 cup almond toffee bits

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Weigh or lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour, oats, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl; stir with a whisk. Place sugar and butter in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended (about 5 minutes). Add vanilla and egg; beat well. Add flour mixture; beat just until combined.

Stir in toffee bits.

Drop dough by tablespoonfuls 2 inches apart on 2 baking sheets coated with cooking spray.

Bake at 350° for 11 minutes or until lightly browned.
Cool on pans 1 minute. Remove cookies from pans; cool completely on wire racks.

Cooking Light

* I used self-rising flour and omitted the baking soda and salt.