1/4 cup melted Crisco type shortening (love those awful trans-fats!)
2 squares baking chocolate (the bitter kind)
1 cup sugar
2 eggs (added one at a time)
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. baking power sifted with
1 cup flour

Chill and roll into balls. Roll each ball in powdered (confectioner's) sugar. DO NOT flatten or add more flour. Place on cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees ... don't overbake them. As they bake, the surface will crack so they have a white crust with deep cracks revealing the chocolate centers. They really do look like mud cracks.

Chocolate macaroons are delicious cookies ... you bake them just until they are set enough that you can get them off the greased cookie sheet ... and they are so very soft and chocolaty with that pure white surface. One thing that really messes them up is putting them into a container in layers after they cool, because the powdered sugar falls off onto the cookies below and they get all dusty looking. I imagine we at least doubled the batch, but doubling it twice might present storage problems.

I think it was our father who said they looked like mudpies ... and the name stuck. Our father liked descriptive names ... and he may have come by this honestly. He said his mother once baked a pie from black currants (possibly skunk currants) that grew by the lake. His father said they tasted "just like bedbugs." My father wondered to his dying day how his father could possibly have known what bedbugs tasted like!


       Well, now, got all that? Stay tuned for that "Bedbug Pie" recipe coming up, and recipes with even MORE colorful names! Thanks Jerrianne, for the calories... I mean, memories. I'm sure they will remain with us forever!
        How about you? I sure would like to know what's cooking in YOUR kitchen, so get off your stool and send me something yummy at tomatillos@juno.com.  See you next time!