After the strange and scary events of last week, I was so happy to be home, wandering around my yard weeding, colllecting sticks that had fallen in the last of the many winter storms and tidying up.

Fancy Fire Pits are useful too!

Then I moved indoors to more of the same, though I was waylaid by hunger and ended up cooking for the better part of the afternoon. Luckily, I had a teenaged daughter and her friend available to eat up the treats. I love baking but do precious little of it. We are empty-nesters and it is hard to justify baking just for the two of us. For one thing, we would eat it all. And for another, we would eat it all!!

Ready for baking

Now we just need a glass of milk!

I am having a green moment, green grass, green spring vegetables, green sweets?? Think pistachios!! I happened to have some in the pantry, leftover from the holiday baking bonanza so I turned on the oven and got busy. A mere hour later and we had delicious, barely green Pistachio Shortbread.  And they were so simple to make- really!

Preheat your oven to 325 and lightly toast 1 cup of unsalted pistachios. Dump them into the food processor and wait a little while for them to cool. Once they are cool, chop them finely. To that add 1 1/4 cup flour, 3/4 cup sugar (though they are a little sweet for me, I will make them with 1/2 cup next time), and a teaspoon kosher salt.  Pulse again to blend. Add a stick unsalted butter cut into small pieces and pulse until it looks like cornmeal. In a little cup stir together 1 egg yolk, 1 tablespoon water and 1/4 teaspoon almond extract. Add this through the feed tube until dough comes together loosely (it will be crumbly). Press it onto a wax paper lined cookie sheet to make a 1/2″ flat rectangle and refrigerate until firm, about an hour.  Cut dough into squares or rectangles and bake until lightly browned and firm, about 18 minutes. When cool, drizzle with bittersweet chocolate if you want to be fancy.

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