weekend round up and recipe

I had a nice run this morning, managed to fit in the Warriors and Goddesses workout and played some basketball with my son. 

This week should be pretty hectic, it's getting closer to the holidays so there is a lot happening of course. This also means lots of eating yummy foods which are totally NOT on the regular diet list and this brings us to today's recipe. 

I will tell you right now this is not a healthy treat if by healthy you mean low in fat. It is made with whole ingredients and by whole I mean BUTTER! No margarine or oil here, I guess you could try to make substitutions but really who wants to do that. 

So here it is, a delicious holiday cookie from Vegetarian Times.

Pistachio-Cherry Sandwich Cookie

1.5 cups shelled pistachios

2 sticks butter, unsalted, softened

1 cup sugar

1 large egg

1 tbs. lemon juice

3 cups al purpose flour

2 tsp. grated lemon zest

.5 tsp. baking powder

.25 tsp. salt

1.25 cups cherry preserves

1. Process pistachios in food processor until finely ground, about 1 minute. Transfer to a bowl and set aside.

2. Cream butter and sugar in food processor until fluffy. add egg, lemon juice and pulse until combined. Scrape down sides. Add pistachios, flour, lemon zest, baking powder and salt. Pulse until dough clumps together, about 15 seconds. Divide dough into 2 disks, wrap in plastic and put in refrigerator for an hour or until firm.

3. Preheat oven to 350. Roll out 1 disk on lightly floured parchment until about 1/8 of an inch think. **Transfer parchment with dough to a cookie sheet and place into freezer for about 5 minutes to firm up.

4. Cut out cookies with a 2 inch cutter and place onto parchment lined cookie sheet. Place cookies 1 inch apart. Bake for 12 minutes or until golden. Transfer to wire rack to cool. Repeat with remaining dough.

5. Spread ***1 tsp. preserves on to half of cookies and top with remaining cookies.

NOTES

** I skipped the step of putting the dough in the freezer, my freezer simply isn't big enough. I chilled the dough as disks for about 1.5 hours and worked quickly to roll it and cut it, so it's really up to you if you want to skip this step.

*** I used less than an entire teaspoon of preserves per cookie. I also used just a tiny bit of water to thin the preserves before I filled the cookies.

enjoy!

martha

p.s. Camille, you should be getting some of these tomorrow so watch out!