Pistachio-Cranberry Bars - by Summer

These bars are perfect for this time of year.  I love making cookies for the holidays and I am always looking for new recipes.  What could be more festive than green pistachios and red cranberries?  This recipe is easy, although there were a few tedious steps.  Shelling the pistachios wasn't so fun and then chopping them took up the most time.  Since I have a love/hate relationship with my food processor, I once again opted to make the crust using a pastry blender.

When purchasing ingredients for this recipe, I accidentally bought evaporated milk.  In my head sweetened condensed milk and evaporated milk are the same thing.  Don't be fooled - they are very, very different!

One of my favorite things about this recipe was the fact that there were so few ingredients.  They tasted very different than I was expecting (my husband said the same thing too).  They were much sweeter - even with the tart cranberries.  I like them and found them quite addicting.  However, I was surprised that the nuts weren't very crunchy.  I am curious to see what would happen if you use a different type of nut, like pecans.  I will definitely making this cookie again!