mmm tastes like butter cookies, oh wait, not butter cookies, more like butter cookies with nuts, Actually you know what, tastes almost like cereal prawns, especially of the crunchy crispy bits of cereal often strewned abundantly over the prawns or squid or whatever seafood there is.
Wait, how can the taste of butter cookies evolveto cereal prawns within the span of 4-5 chews.
dont ask me, ask the cookies. dont look at me, its not my fault! its theirs!
*conveniently shifts all blame to the cookie for being difficult.



Aha cny brings about the mother going on a massive cookie spree. much like me during christmas time and aftermajor exams. I guess the apple doesnt fall that far from the tree in relation to this(; Its a good thing though, so no complains here. Cookies, big or small are pretty much good friends with mix-ins of any sort, most commonly being chocolate chips but that in itself brings about numerous variety for those who care to look.
dark, white, milk, semi-sweet,bittersweet, mint chocolate. ah chocolate.
BUT, onto that another day.



That said, we mustn't forget nuts. Although here in singapore the most commonly found and well, readily available nut (in non exorbitant prices) are almonds.
A trip to redman or phoonhuat can bring you face to face with an entire shelf or shelves of almonds.
Almonds done in every way possible. chopped, diced, silvered, whole, blanched, unblanched, powdered (ooh almond powder = macarons!), sliced, salted, unsalted. You get the idea. And its relatively affordable as well. Second to that is probably walnuts. Peanuts dont count here, those are for teasing your perfectly manicured fingernails with during cny or coupled with beer and pizza on a saturday night. or in my parents case, snacks to go with red wine..hmm no judging here.



But we're not here to talk about peanuts or almonds, its walnuts! hello! About $16/kg give or take. Sigh no farmers markets here to go to for pecans, macademia!, walnuts, brazil nuts and all other forms of nutty delights. Hence the obvious lack of nuts in my food endavours.but well, since these cookies have nuts as a key ingredient and I didnt have to fund these myself, hah walnuts it is!
200g of walnuts can make a whole lot of very-walnutty cookies. and very awesome i might add. so thats more than half a kg of walnuts for me to play around with in the near future. double yay.



The chopping up of the nuts could well be done by a food processor - yet again. But chopping them by hand (something not done by me) is definitely the easier way to quality control the size of the nut chunks. so it is recommended, by me(: Besides, food processing does ruin the fun, whizzing everything up into a food blur, plus the washing! haha.



Walnuts + oatmeal + cookie. i think this is my new favourite cny cookie. Still cant hold a candle, though, to my favourite cny snack(s) which grandma has perfected through years and years of making them. More on that sometime in the next post. I think this is what a cross between cereal prawns and a butter cookie would taste like.



Ah chinese new year, I really dont know whether to love or hate you.