Matcha (Green tea) Shortbread Cookies

I just wanted to say that I am not a big fan of St Patrick's Day food. I have never liked corned beef and cabbage. When I was a kid I thought corned beef reminded me too much of ham (which I never liked). Cabbage just smelled funny and I never understood how any one could like it (through a child's eyes). I now eat cabbage and enjoy it ever since I've seen Ina Garten make it this way on Food Network's The Barefoot Contessa.

So simple...just melt a little butter in a pan, add some sliced cabbage, sprinkle with some sea salt and saute until tender...

...and enjoy! That's it! That's all there is to it, none of this boiling it to death...the best thing is...it is so yummy like this. And for corned beef, I do eat it on Ruben sandwich.


As for the green tea cookies, here's the story. It is my Saturday to post on Our Krazy Kitchen, and since my segment is Cultural Connections I thought "oh no they'll probably expect something Irish". Then the other day I was reading the Mountain Rose news letter (I get many of my organic herbs from there) and they had a recipe for Matcha Shortbread Cookies on the Mountain Rose Blog so I thought these would be perfect for my post, at least they are green!



Matcha or green tea powder is used in many recipes across the board...I've seen it used in pasta, cakes, breads and many cookies, including shortbread cookies. I first bought the green tea powder meaning to add it to drinks and such to help incorporate this healthy tea into my diet. Well to be honest, green tea is not one of my favorite drinks. So the ideas have been collecting for other ways to use it. I was able to find it in my local Asian market, I also saw it at Whole Foods, so I know you shouldn't have much trouble finding it.



I made half a batch just to see if I would like it, so here is my "half" recipe that I adapted from Mountain Rose Blog
they made them with a vanilla bean glaze, but I didn't want it that sweet.

Matcha Shortbread Cookies

1 cup organic flour
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/4 cup organic powdered sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons organic matcha powder
1 stick (1/2 cup) organic unsalted butter, softened
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (my homemade)

Directions:
Sift the dry cookie dough ingredients together in a small bowl. In a batter bowl, whip the softened butter until just smooth. Add the vanilla extract to the butter and then combine with all of the dry ingredients. Flatten and shape the dough into a disc. Wrap the dough in plastic and chill for about an hour in the refrigerator until firm.

Lightly flour your work surface, as well as the top of your dough, and roll out to about an 1/8”. Cut rolled dough with your favorite cookie cutters and place them on parchment paper lined baking sheets. They don’t expand much at all, so don’t worry about creating lots of space between the cookies. Bake them in a preheated oven at 325°F for 10-15 minutes or until lightly golden at the edges.

My Notes: I really liked them, so tasty and good, they did have a strong green tea flavor, but if you don't like that and want to cut back on the matcha powder add in a little more powdered sugar. I think that I had it in the refrigerator for too long because it was so hard I had to wait a while for it to be soft enough to roll out. By the time I had them on the baking sheet they were a little too soft, but they still tasted good. I think next time I won't roll them so thin, or you could shape it in a log and just slice them after refrigerating off from that to make the cookies.


I had a friend tell me once that you shouldn't point out your mistakes, then everyone will think you planned it that way. Well I would do that if I was serving it to people...but here on my blog I want to let you know and learn from it hehehe or not! Okay so here it is, I thought the cookies ran a little because it was too warm, but to tell the truth I used regular organic sugar and not powdered sugar...I even asked myself how odd it was that they didn't use powdered sugar in shortbread, but no, I read it wrong and yes it called for powdered sugar, I imagine it would work better the way the recipe reads. :) But I must say...they were still good!


I'm on spring break so we were able to go see sunset a couple of times this week.


I never get tired of seeing the sunset over the Gulf. We met some people from Maine that were so impressed with seeing the sunset over the water like this. She said there are not too many places that you can see this. I never thought of it like that before. I grew up in Michigan and we spent the summers on the coast where we saw one beautiful sunset after another over Lake Michigan which looked like the Gulf, then I lived in Hawaii and enjoyed such beautiful sunsets as well. I realized how lucky we are to enjoy such amazing sunsets when ever we wish.

Really no matter how you look at it...


...from every angle...

So that is why I like to share them with you all! :D

This recipe joined in on Bake with Bizzy and playing along with #greenslove@ Ms Pensamientos