A Little of this . . .and a Little of That: October 2011

It was the Primary Program in our ward today. I have 3 grandkids in my ward. We've been talking about the program for a few weeks - since we went to their cousins program. I've tried to get them excited about it. The oldest told me that she wasn't going to sing : ( - maybe just mouth random words. Every time I watched her, she was singing right along! The Middle child had the best smile on his face at all times. The sunbeam just stood on the front row and twirled his hair! Later I asked the oldest one why she was singing. She said, " When you're under pressure, you can do almost anything!" I asked her what pressure she was under. "Well, if we didn't sing, we'd be yelled at for the whole singing time today!" LOL! Kids! I love them.

Walnut Snowball Cookies Recipe

Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 35 minutes

You can make these cookies with wild black walnuts, pecans, hazelnuts, hickory or butternuts -- all will work fine.

INGREDIENTS

1 cup all-purpose or cake flour
1 1/2 cups walnuts, finely chopped
2-3 Tbsp sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 pound butter (at room temperature)
Pinch of salt
Powdered sugar, to coat (about 1 cup)

METHOD

1 Preheat the oven to 300°F and prepare a large cookie sheet.

2 Mix all the dry ingredients (flour, walnuts, salt, sugar) in a large bowl. Add the vanilla extract. Add the butter in little pieces, and combine everything together with your (clean!) hands until the mixture looks like a coarse meal with nut bits in it. Form the dough into small balls no larger than a walnut and place on the cookie sheet, spaced at least an inch apart from each other.

3 Bake for 35 minutes. When they are still warm, but cool enough to touch, roll the cookies in some powdered sugar. Set aside on a rack to cool completely. When cool, dust again in powdered sugar.

Yield: Makes about 20 cookies.