Curling Cookies

If you didn't know this already, I curl! Every Monday evening, I head out to our local curling rink and chuck a 4o-odd pound hunk of granite down a length of ice, and then I sweep like crazy. It's fun, it's social, and it's good exercise. It's a great group of gals this year, and every other week we have "goodie night" in which two teams, in rotation, bring some small snack to share with the league. We usually have really great spreads and everyone looks forward to goodie night!

So, tonight, two recipes that are related to curling goodie night: one is from a lady who brought these amazing pecan cookies in and everyone wanted the recipe! She was kind enough to print off a whole bunch for us, and these were so good that I made a double batch for my Christmas baking spree this year. The second recipe is one that I made when it was my team's turn to bring goodies. I got the recipe from an issue of Taste of Home that my good friend Pierce was kind enough to send me a few weeks ago. It's actually an OceanSpray recipe, but it was a good one.

Pecan Cookies, courtesy D. of my curling club

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/4 cups packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 egg
1 1/4 cups flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
2/3 cup pecan pieces
pecan halves, for the tops

Do you need directions? Seriously? OK: cream, combine, drop, stick a pecan half on top, and bake @ 350F for 8 minutes.

It is KEY that you underbake these for a fudgey, chewy cookie.

They spread quite a bit, so make sure to drop them onto the sheet about 2" apart.

Lovely cookies!

OK, so I made these really nice Oatmeal Cranberry White Chocolate Chunk Cookies, found here.
I do NOT recommend you bake these at 375F as the recipe tells you to! That is way too hot for white chocolate! Do not bake any chocolate above 350F, especially white.

Other than that, nice recipe!