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Grandma's Skillet Cookies Recipe

Combine in a saucepan:
          1 stick butter
          1 cup sugar
          1 egg, beaten
          1 cup chopped dates

Bring to a boil and boil for 5 minutes.

Add:

          2 cups Rice Krispies
          1/2 cup nuts
          1 tsp vanilla

Make into balls and roll in coconut.


Actual Skillet Cookies Experience

Combine in a saucepan:
          1 stick butter
          1 cup sugar
          1 egg, beaten
          1 cup chopped dates

Bring to a boil, stirring somewhat frantically as sugar begins sticking to the bottom of the pan. Stare at pan for an eternity, waiting for the boil. Worry about sticky sugar in good saucepan, husband's reaction to it. Boil finally happens. Boil for 5 minutes.

Add:
          2 cups Rice Krispies
          1/2 cup nuts
          1 tsp vanilla

Stir up in shiny new mixing bowl. Contemplate whether or not there will be enough cookies. Decide to maybe make a second batch once first batch is done.

Make into balls and roll in coconut. Attempt to roll into balls. Burn fingers on hot sticky mix. Stuff in refrigerator to cool.

In the meantime, scrub sugar out of saucepan. Keep scrubbing. Get a hand cramp. Almost done. Oh, thank God it came out after all.

Retrieve cookie mix. Still hot, but not blistering.

Make into balls and roll in coconut. resist urge to hop up and down while chanting "hot! hot! hot!" Roll in coconut. Watch as 95% of coconut falls off. Smush coconut into surface of hot date ball. Watch as 85% of coconut falls off. Decide you don't care. Repeat. Gain new respect for grandmother, who made these cookies every Christmas until she passed away.

Grow concerned as mixture cools and becomes more likely to stick to you than to itself. Abandon coconut and quickly roll non-coconut-coated balls for family members who don't like it anyway. (And thank goodness for them, because there's no way coconut would stick now.)

Decide there's no way you're doing all of this again today.

Makes approximately two dozen.