These little bricks of amazingness are more salty than sweet, and go best with a fat glass of almond milk (or coconut milk! Or really any non-dairy milk). The best part of this “cookie” is that it’s made with olive oil! That’s right, no shortening, no butter, JUST olive oil, which was inspired by a delicious olive oil cake I had at Elf Vegetarian Café on Sunset in Silver Lake/Echo Park, LA. So I started experimenting! And you should, too. Feel free to be adventurous and use other flavors, such as rose water extract. The local market didn’t carry it at the time I was so compelled to make these, but rosewater was initially intended for this yummy creation. So let me know how that goes if you try it.

INGREDIENTS (dough):

3 cups white whole wheat flour
1 ¼ cup organic (vegan) powdered sugar
½ cup of unsalted pistachios, chopped well (or salted if you want your cookie to be extra savory)
2 zested lemons
1 cup of olive oil

INGREDIENTS (glaze):
more of that organic powdered sugar
coconut oil
vanilla extract (I recommend ohladycakes vanilla extract – www.ohladycakes.com -- it’s superb and homemade by an adorable cookie monster).
lemon extract
6 Tablespoons of water (added one at a time)

DIRECTIONS (DOUGH):

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease a 9x9 glass pan and set aside.
In a bowl, combine and mix together the flour, sugar, pistachios (you want these to be finely chopped, a couple big chunks are okay), and lemon zest. Feel free to throw in a literal dash of lemon extract if you really want to taste the lemon. Then add the olive oil and mix with your hands until well combined. Press mixture into greased pan so that it’s even. Pop in the oven and cook for about 55 minutes. Listen up folks! (and this is important.) Do yourself a favor and set the time for 40 minutes and start checking at 5 minute increments. These bars of perfection can go to hell in a hand basket if you overcook em. So keep a keen eye on these bad boys. They should be golden and juuuuust firm to the touch.

Let sit for 20-30 minutes before cutting. You can cut them however you like; I cut mine into little squares.

DIRECTIONS (GLAZE):
Add all the ingredients together and mix until there are no lumps. Add the water last, one tablespoon at a time for desired consistency (it should be thick-ish). Don’t be afraid to whisk the sh&^#$ out of it. Once the shortbread has cooled, drizzle or pour (depending on how sweet you want these – I like to do half really sweet, half a bit saltier and less sugary) and let sit another 30 minutes ideally.

Recipes, shmecipes.

Game. On. (or, lemon pistachio shortbread with coconut lemon glaze; vegan of course):

The Hungry Wolfe

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