I needed a break from turkey and pumpkin. Tomorrow, I think I'll take Tristyn to lunch at the Indian restaurant and that will give my taste buds that farthest possible taste from turkey I can think of. Today, I took care of the pumpkin by whipping up these Chocolate Iced Shortbread cookies that my grandmother used to make at Christmas time. Very plain. Very simple. Very delicious.
They put me in mind of chocolate eclairs but they taste much better (I'm not a cream puff/eclair fan) and are one of the quickest cookies imaginable.
You should make them too:
Chocolate Iced Shortbread Cookies
1 cup soft butter
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1-2 teaspoons vanilla --glug it in, don't dirty your teaspoon
2 cups flour
1 cup of chocolate chips-- (I used 60% cacao Ghiaradelli bittersweet chips, but have used milk chocolate and plain old semi-sweet before)
Combine all ingredients until smooth. If too soft, refrigerate for 30-60 minutes. Shape into pinky-finger shaped and sized cookies. Bake for 9-11 minutes at 350 degrees or until light gold on the edges/bottom. Cool.
In a double boiler, melt chocolate chips. Give each cookie a thick stripe of chocolate. Eat.
My grandmother's recipe says to stir 1 tablespoon of milk and 1 tablespoon of shortening into the melted chocolate. I never do that because 1--why ruin perfectly good chocolate by adding milk? and 2-- you know how I feel about shortening!
I did some more knitting, too. I'm pretty sure I'm addicted; a few more weeks should tell.
Maia already had a perfectly serviceable face covering scarf but she didn't want to be left out of the new scarf stuff going on around here. I thought I'd try something a little more difficult--for me--and make the Wavy Scarf that was in my "Knitting for Dummies" book. The book said it was an excellent way to practice increasing and decreasing and it used a couple of methods for it. I still need to reference the M1 increase but I've got the ssk and k2tog decreases and the k1fb increase down pretty well in that I don't have to reference the how-to to do them.
With the overflowing refrigerator full of leftovers around here, it left me plenty of time to concentrate on making this today. I started it last night around 8 pm-ish and finished it today about 6. Not too bad-but it did come together quickly.
It's not perfect but it makes a pretty decorative scarf for Maia to wear. And most importantly, all this knitting gives me something to do while I wait for people to eat the things I bake!
