triticale - the wheat / rye guy

Crackling Cookies

My son believes that the entire nature of our neighborhood can be summed up by the fact that the local gas station, which doubles as a convenience mart, sells seven varieties of pork rinds but no tortilla chips. I believe he's being pessimistic. Many people who live around here would never set foot inside that store, in fact they buy their gasoline at the other end of their travels, and do their shopping a ways to the westward, where the two major chain groceries have altered their stock to compete with the nearby member-owned earthy crunchy store. Be that as it may, and despite the fact that the cracklings calld for in the original recipe are harder and greasier than pork rinds, I offer up the following recipe traditional Hutterite recipe.

1-1/2 cup brown sugar
1-1/2 cup crushed pork rinds
3 eggs, beaten
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup raisins
1 cup broken nut bits
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Walnuts would be traditional, but either cashew bits (and cashews are much cheaper when not whole) or unsalted sunflower seeds (whole, in this case) would work well.

Mix all the ingredients, and then add flour a little at a time until you get a dough which holds together when rolled into a ball about the size of a hailstone the size of a golfball. Flatten with a fork like you would for peanut butter cookies, and bake in a 400 degree (Farenheit) oven (preheated) for ten to fifteen minutes (and yes, I know that parenthetic expressions don't belong in a recipe).