TWD—Chocolate Hazelnut Shortbread Cookies (Giveaway Reminder)

Hey, if you haven’t heard, I’m having a giveaway for an EatSmart Precision Pro Digital Kitchen Scale.  Entries to US residents only until midnight tonight, Tuesday, August 31.  Head over to my giveaway post and enter to win.

One thing I’m really horrible at is remembering to take pictures of the boys at times when I really wish I had taken pictures.  I see moms all excited taking pictures of their kids as they head out for their first day of school and I really wish I’d remember, but I almost always forget.  Besides that, my boys won’t pose for pictures like that.  So the boys all started the new school year last week.  Scott is in 7th grade, woohoo.  Parker started 3rd grade, Taylor is in 1st grade and Sam is even in preschool now.  We are all going through quite the adjustment with the new EARLY schedule.  In Kansas, the boys started school at 8:45 a.m.  We only lived minutes from the school, so they often didn’t leave until after 8:30.

They get to ride the bus now and I’m happy to not have to drive them to and from school every day.  Since school starts at 8:00, they catch the bus at 7:15, which means we are getting them up by 6:30, which after the summer break is really early.  To top that off, in Kansas, Kevin’s schedule was such that he most often was home in the morning until all the boys were off to school, now here, he is teaching pretty early M-W-F and is gone before the kids get up.  Ah, fun times. 

Well, I actually did grab the camera as I was trying to spray down Sam’s hair and comb if for the first day of school.  So here’s my first day of school photo.  (He’s going to school M-W-F, 9:00-11:15.)

Sam is also doing GREAT with potty training right now.  He’s not quite there yet, but doing much better than I thought he would.  He was sitting on the potty the other day, trying to go, he was getting frustrated, put his elbows on his legs and his hands on his chin and very sadly said, “It just not working”.  He could not be one drop cuter.   That’s enough potty talk.

Let’s talk cookies.  Tuesday’s With Dorie cookies, which are on page 125 in .  Donna at Life's too short not to eat dessert first chose Espresso-Chocolate Shortbread Cookies.  I don’t “do” espresso, so I decided to use some hazelnut flavoring.  I wish I’d have had some chopped hazelnuts to add to the cookies as well, but I didn’t.  I made half a recipe and added two ounces of Lindt dark chocolate with a touch of sea salt.  That is some good chocolate and I love the extra little zing from the salt.  These shortbread cookies are so easy to make, had great flavor with the chocolate and hazelnut and are perfectly delicate and crumbly, like a shortbread should be.  I’m so glad I made half a recipe because I ate way too many of those cookies.  I made 11 star cutouts and two big cookies from the rest of the dough I put in some four inch tart pans. 

 

I think the cookies looked better without powdered sugar, so I kind of wish I’d have just left them that way, but I did dust them all with some.

I chilled the dough for at least four hours, it might have been five or six.  The half recipe fit perfectly in a quart sized plastic bag.  The dough was perfect for cutting shapes with cookie cutters and then pressing ther rest into the tart pans.

These cookies would be great to stack up and wrap up to give to someone, if you can bear to give them away.

Thanks, Donna, great pick.  I was going to make a half batch of the Oatmeal Spice Cookies from the playing around section, but after liking the other so much, I decided I just couldn’t risk eating that many more cookies, but the idea of a totally different kind of shortbread with oats and spices sounds really good and I’m sure I’ll make them someday.  You can get this super easy recipe on Donna’s blog.

Or you can just sit and play Game Boy games.  But don’t let all the blood rush to your head.

Silly Parker was just hanging out like that playing his game.

Had a fun little hail storm Monday morning.  It was fast and furious, but only lasted about ten minutes.

There was a rainbow.

It was quite windy, so the hail made a nice little drift up to the garage door.  Sam was having fun scooping up the piles and playing with it, once it stopped coming down.

And happy end of August to you!

Don’t forget to enter the giveaway for the EatSmart Digital Kitchen Scale!