Orange Icebox Cookies

I’ve never been a huge fan of refrigerator cookies.  When I think of them, I can only picture those ones you buy in the grocery store that kind of taste like cardboard.  A few weeks ago I found The Ultimate Cookie Book at a yard sale and it contained this recipe.  It looked good so I thought I’d give it a chance… I’m kind of glad I did… Kind of.

Cream together a half cup softened butter (unsalted) with 1 cup of sugar.  Add an egg and 1 tablespoon grated orange peel and mix well.

In another bowl mix together 1 and 3/4 cups flour, 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon baking soda.  Add this to the creamed mixture, mixing as you go.

On a floured surface, knead together the dough until it’s smooth.  Basically the heat from your hands will melt the butter enough to smooth it out.  Shape the dough into two rolls, about 1 and 1/2 inches in diameter each.  Flatten the tops out to make kind of an oval shape.  Now wrap these in waxed paper and chill overnight in the refrigerator.

The next day, add a few drops of yellow and red food coloring to 1/4 cup sugar. Mix together, then roll the dough in it.  Slice the dough to about 1/4 inch thick slices, and bake for 10-12 minutes at 375°F

To make the icing, mix 1/2 cup icing sugar and 22 tablespoons of orange juice.

These things are super addictive!  They were easy to make, and tasted so much better than I expected.  They were kind of like a shortbread cookie with a bit of orange taste.  I took some into the office and they went very quickly, with many people returning for a second cookie, and a third and…

The nice part about these is that they can be prepared the night before, and you can get around to it “whenever” the next day.  No timeline required.

IHop

I’ve been travelling for the last week (road trip!).  That means I’ll have a couple posts about my restaurant meals. It might be a while before I get things posted because I’m still cleaning up after my trip, OR (more likely) I’ll get the travel posts up first then not post anything while I do the cleanup.  I also started a new job, so I’m not going to be around as much.

Have you been to an IHop before?  This is a newly discovered restaurant for me, since we don’t have one anywhere near my city.  In fact, I have to drive almost FIVE hours to hit the closest one!  Crazy, right?

After several hours on the road we decided to stop for breakfast.  I had their International Passport, which is a crepe, eggs and bacon, and I had a side of toast and a glass of orange juice.

That’s a LOT of food, especially trapped in a hot car.  Oh, didn’t I mention?  Our air conditioning broke an hour and a half into our cross-country trip.  It worked when we stopped for breakfast but not when we left.

Moving on…  The crepe wasn’t the same as last time I had it (seasonal fruit) but you didn’t really notice because it was smothered with yogurt and granola.  That was surprisingly good.  The eggs were cooked just how I liked and so was the bacon, but the toast was burned.  And the orange juice was super good, not watered down like you get some places.  I’m still shocked at how well the pineapple went with the yogurt.

Over all it was good but it wasn’t the “this is AWESOME” feeling like the last (first) time I ate there.

Someone else in my group got an omelette, toast and plain pancakes.  He said it was really good, although his toast was also burned (all four of us had that problem).