Thursday, December 13, 2007

Pasha's Christmas Cookies

Moscow Basilica
Strange but true: I've worked full-time, for eight years, with a man I've never met or even spoken to. That's because he lives in Moscow and neither one of us feel like affording that long distance bill.

We freelance together. He's my designer/programmer. I email him junk, he emails me stuff, somehow we put it all together and make it look pretty. (Long live the internet.)

I've never met him, but I did meet one of his co-workers a few years back. Costya introduced us to the miracles of fine vodka. After a few hundred shots of that stuff, he taught us how to swear in Russian. Прокляните все это к черту!

Every year, I send Pasha a Christmas card. He never gets them but I keep sending them anyway. I figure, if Putin stays in office long enough he might figure out how to make his postal service work. Until then, I suppose the KGB is compiling a big secret file on my activities...

Russian Snowball Cookie Recipe - Makes 3 dozen
(Российский Рецепт Печенья Снежка)
  • 1 cup butter
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 6 tablespoons powdered sugar
  • 2 cups flour
  • 1 cup chopped walnuts
How To:
  1. Cream butter and vanilla until smooth.
  2. Combine powdered sugar and flour; stir into the butter mixture.
  3. Mix in the chopped walnuts.
  4. Roll dough into 1 inch balls and place 2 inches apart on cookie sheet.
  5. Bake for 12 minutes @ 350 degrees F.
  6. When cool, roll in a second dusting of powdered sugar.
* Dough will appear very dry. The warmth of your hands, as you form the snowballs, softens the butter and moistens the cookie dough.

This is my 3rd most favorite cookie in the whole wide world. Whenever I make them, I think of my buddy, P. They melt in your mouth, light as air. If I could stop eating them long enough to put them in a box, I'd probably send him some.

С Рождеством Христовым, Пол. Я даже не знаю, любите ли Вы это печенье!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Another cookie recipe??? Gak! You are killing me here. I have 8" of snow on the ground, and more predicted tonight (even though right now skies are blue and sun is shining and snow looks like diamonds..ooh! my favorite winter scene!) Nothing to do but bake cookies until I run out of ingredients. Thanks for this recipe. Loved these as a kid, but never would have looked up the recipe without a reminder.

Kate/High Altitude Gardening said...

Snow, snow and more snow. That's why I'm spending so much time baking, too. Thanks for the note!

thismngardener said...

Pasha-yes!! Gosh-didn't recall that you hadn't met him. We saw him on his last visit to MN 3 or so years ago. I just posted some photos on Facebook-not maybe you can view this? http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=23380&id=531712921&ref=mf

Unknown said...

Wow, blog post about ME!!!! ME!!

With incentive like this, now I have no choice but to bake these cookies on upcoming weekend. I'll send some photos in email :)