OK, OK. I get it. You don’t really care about salads and quinoa and beans. That was evident when I took a bunch of cookies outside for my neighbors. Sara, (of Sassy Suppers), was clearly thrilled.

“You’re baking again!” she said, before listing all the boring things I’ve been blogging about lately.

So I figured maybe I should hold off on that post about coconut brown rice with winter squash. And the veggie chili with tofu.

Now, I did incorporate organic and locally sourced ingredients into these cookies. But don’t worry. They’re almost entirely devoid of nutrients.

Instead, they’re full of butter, sugar and potato chips. And nuts. Those actually are good for you, though. Sorry.

As much as I love Doritos (we’re talking sonnet-writing-level love, people), I’m really not that into potato chips. I do like the cheddar and sour cream flavor, but I only eat the plain kind with onion dip. Still, when I saw this recipe on Smitten Kitchen, I thought it could be perfect for Super Bowl.

Putting potato chips in cookies may sound a little weird, but the salty-sweet combination totally works. Even if you scrape the salt off pretzels and would happily eat marshmallows for breakfast (and lunch) every day.

The cookie part is similar to a Mexican wedding cookie. And it’s actually not super salty. So what you put on top is key.

I tried a couple different options: leaving them plain, dipping them partially in chocolate and sprinkling that with crushed potato chips, and just sprinkling a mix of salt and chip crumbs on top. The salty chip crumble was the clear winner.

So, if you’re going to a Super Bowl party and the host asks you to bring dessert, don’t be like that guy in the Target commercial and buy a bag of M&Ms. Make these. Just try not to eat them all before kickoff.

Potato chip cookies (Adapted from Smitten Kitchen, makes about 2 dozen)
1/2 cup chopped pecans
Potato chips (enough to make a little more than 1/2 cup crushed)
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature*
1 cup granulated sugar, divided
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups all-purpose flour
Plus more crushed potato chips and salt for topping

Preheat oven to 350 F. Line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats or parchment paper.

Toast the pecans (before or after chopping them) in the oven or in a small skillet over medium heat. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Crush the potato chips in a food processor or by putting them in a heavy-duty plastic bag and smacking them with the back of a spoon.

In a mixing bowl, cream together the butter and 1/2 cup of the sugar until light and fluffy. Mix in the vanilla and salt. Add the pecans, 1/2 cup of the crushed chips and all the flour together. Mix just until combined (mixture will be crumbly).

Put some of the remaining sugar in a small bowl (you may not need the whole 1/2 cup). Form a little ball of dough with your hands and roll the ball in the sugar until it’s coated. Place on a prepared baking sheet and press down slightly with the bottom of a glass (or something else flat).

Stir some salt into the remaining crushed potato chips. Sprinkle some of that mixture on the top of the cookie. Continue forming cookies and sprinkling with chip/salt mixture until all dough is used.

Bake the cookies about 15 minutes, or until they start to become golden brown around the edges. Cool before eating — they will be very crumbly when hot.

*A friend of mine recently mentioned having a baking disaster when she tried to soften butter in the microwave. The butter melted, which changes the consistency of the final baked product. Don’t let that happen to you! The best thing to do for recipes that call for softened or room temperature butter is to let it sit out on the counter for a while (it’s OK if it isn’t actually room temperature, but it shouldn’t be cold and hard). If you don’t have time, try cutting the butter up into tablespoon-sized pieces and letting that sit out for a little while. It gets soft faster in pieces than as a whole stick. Setting the wrapped sticks of butter on the stovetop while the oven is pre-heating can also speed up the process a bit. And if you really think you need to microwave it, do it for very short periods at a low power.