Super Simple Shortbread

(Mine didn't come out nearly this pretty)

I am the first to admit that I don't cook. At all. When I was living by myself, canned soup and a basket of cherry tomatoes were often the dinner fare, and I never cooked with anything that required more than say, two ingredients. I'm still lucky in that most of the time, I'm not called upon to cook for the family, as Ralph takes that on himself (thank God). But now with this Discretionary Eating Challenge underway, I've had to rethink a lot of my eating habits and do some cooking for myself instead of relying on processed foods to get me by.

The funny thing is, I'm actually enjoying it. Not that I'm doing all that much; mostly just cooking brown rice and edamame and finding more interesting veggies to eat (radish, anyone?). But I do like to bake and found a recipe for shortbread on this site, along with a cool bread recipe, too.

All it requires is flour, sugar, and butter. With ingredients like that, how could it not be good?


I converted the recipe from ounces to cups:
3/4 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter

Doesn't sound all that healthy, but considering what I usually eat, this is pretty good. Plus, I used unrefined, raw sugar, which is at least a bit better than the refined stuff.

Just mix the ingredients together and roll it out as flat as you'd like. I don't have a rolling pin so I just used a leftover salsa bottle:


Cut it into squares and put on a baking sheet. Sprinkle with sugar.


It was WAY too hot to heat up the oven, so I just used the toaster oven. Had to divide the recipe into 3 shifts, but it was much better than heating up the house above its already 90 or so degrees. (Yeah, summer in the desert with no A.C. is so much fun.)


I left 'em in there for about 15 minutes or so.

They came out pretty durned good if I do say so myself.


Next time I'll probably roll them thinner, as I like them nice and crunchy. But the boys liked the soft, chewy ones, so it all turned out alright. Super easy and yummy to boot. Maybe I'll just make these instead of Christmas cookies this year...