If you hate wordy recipe posts then TOO BAD 😂 Scroll to the bottom for the recipe!
If you're a longtime reader, then you know that my favorite Christmas tradition every year is delivering boxes of groceries to families in need in my hometown with our local Elks Lodge. The men in my family have always been Elks members, so it's an event that I've been participating literally since I was born! It takes place the weekend before Christmas (this past weekend!), and we spend Friday evening packing all of the boxes (over 350!) with the nonperishable portion of the groceries, and the perishable portion (milk, eggs, turkeys, etc.) get packed early Saturday morning as volunteers arrive to take the boxes to the homes receiving them. It's a huge effort that takes so much manpower, I'm truly amazed every year at the amount of work that goes into it!
As part of the "Christmas box" tradition, many of the Elk spouses host a lunch for all of the volunteers to enjoy after delivering all of the boxes. My contribution to the lunch each year is to bake all of the cookies - hundreds of them! It's always a labor of love but always love the process and of course I love seeing the smiles on people's faces when the cookie girl walks in with platters of sweets. 😂
I posted a list of recipes for my go-to Christmas cookie recipes last year which are the ones I always make for the Christmas box event, but in this post I'm featuring one very special cookie recipe that's always a hit despite its Grinchy appearance - pistachio cookies! I'm known among my friends for these cookies because they're so unique - I always bring them to our Christmas wine and cheese nights and we always eat way too many of them, but we can't resist! They're sweet, flavorful, and perfectly chewy.
This is a recipe that previously only existed in handwritten form on a piece of my Granddad's stationary, but today I'm immortalizing it on Shenandoah Sugar for all to enjoy! I don't know how I remember this, but my VERY FIRST Instagram post back in 2012 was a collage of photos from the baking process of this recipe, including a photo of that handwritten recipe!
Pistachio Cookies
Ingredients:
- 2 eggs
- 3 T water
- 1/2 c vegetable oil
- 1 box white cake mix
- 1 box instant pistachio pudding mix (just the powder, not prepared)
- 1/2 c chopped nuts (I use pecans)
- 1/2 c sweetened shredded coconut
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 350° F.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, add the eggs, water, and oil, and beat until combined.
- To the mixer, add the cake mix and pudding mix and mix until almost combined (still some dry spots).
- Add the nuts and coconut and stir until just combined. The dough will be loose and sticky.
- Distribute cookie dough in 2 T increments to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper (the dough is a bit loose - make the blobs as round as possible). Bake for 8-10 minutes or until just set and lightly browned on the bottoms.
While I'm sharing favorite family recipes, I'll also re-link the recipe for my favorite large-batch Bloody Mary mix for those of you still reading - I hope you love Bloodys! This Bloody Mary mix is another contribution that my dad and I make to the Christmas box effort - everyone enjoys a strong Bloody after a chilly morning of philanthropy!
I hope you're having a great holiday season, and PLEASE let me know if you make these cookies! Even a Grinch will love them. 😉
xoxx, Laura
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