Chocolate Snowballs

This cookie recipe came from Dan Savage.  Yes.  THAT Dan Savage.  Well, from his mother, really.  But Dan passed the recipe along and I decided to take a chance and I'm glad I did.

This is the second new recipe I've gotten from a radio podcast.  (The other being the Sweet Potato Pie recipe below.)  Both of them are egg-sell-ent.
I'm going to have to take up NPR all over again.
These are melt-in-your-mouth delicious.  A chocolate, butter-based cookie with pecans and tossed in sugar. What's not to love?
Without further ado....

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cup butter

2/3 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 c flour
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 cup cocoa
2 c pecans

confectioners sugar

Directions:

Sift flour, salt, and cocoa together.  Cream butter & sugar until fluffy.  Add vanilla.  Mix together dry ingredients in a separate bowl.  Gradually beat dry ingredients into butter mixture.  Blend in pecans. Form a log, wrap in saran and then foil, and put in fridge overnight.

Cut loaf into inch-thick slices, then into quartered cubes.  Roll cubes into balls about 1 inch in diameter.  Bake on a non-greased cookie sheet for 20 minutes at 350.  Transfer cookies as soon as they come out of the oven to a cooling rack.  Allow to cool completely before tossing in confectioner's sugar.  Much easier than they look when you finish them.  A great beginner's cookie.