Rampart’s wedding cookie recipe worth sharing

“Sometimes my husband and I go to the Rampart Buffet just to get some of their wedding cookies,” emailed Kathy Love. “We have never tasted ones so good and light. Can you get the recipe for us?”

I put the question to the resort’s Therese Sam, and she came through with the recipe from executive pastry chef Joel Gonzalez.

Here it is:

WEDDING COOKIES

3 pounds butter

1 pound powdered sugar

Salt, to taste

2 tablespoons vanilla extract

4 pounds pastry flour

1½ pounds chopped pecans

Powdered sugar for dusting

Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Add salt, vanilla and flour and mix until almost all incorporated. Mix in pecans until incorporated.

Scoop with a 2-ounce scoop and bake at 325 degrees until done.

Dust with powdered sugar.

Makes about 75 cookies.

— Recipe from the Rampart Casino

FOUND ITEMS

For Ava Sterling, who is looking for cottage cheese and canned tomato products with as little sodium as possible, Ingrid Pugh suggested Mrs. Gooch’s Pasta Sauce — No Salt Added, which she said has only 75 milligrams per ½-cup serving and can be found at Whole Foods Market, which has four locations in the Las Vegas Valley.

And Claudia Wright reported finding Hunt’s no-salt-added diced tomatoes and tomato sauce at Wal-Mart and Del Monte no-salt-added diced tomatoes and Contadina no-salt-added tomato sauce at Vons at 2511 Anthem Village Drive in Henderson.

Wright added that Trader Joe’s low-sodium chicken broth is one of the lowest she has found.

READER REQUESTS

Bette Stahl: a local source for veal breasts for preparing at home;

Bob Serres: Norwegian lefse;

And Diane Homeier: a local source for Gonnella French rolls.

Readers?

NEWS FOR FOODIES

The annual Las Vegas Epicurean Affair, a benefit for the Nevada Restaurant Association’s educational and scholarship programs, begins at 7 p.m. Thursday at The Venetian, 3355 Las Vegas Blvd. South. Tickets, at $105 (or $155 for 6 p.m. admission, $190 for VIP) are available at NVRestaurants.com or call 878-2313. …

The ninth annual Best Dam Barbecue Challenge is Friday and Saturday at Bicentennial Park in downtown Boulder City. The event, from 4 to 11 p.m. Friday and 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, will include a state championship barbecue team competition, a car show, a family fun zone, scavenger hunt, music and of course food, with vendors offering barbecue, kettle corn, corn on the cob, nachos, churros, funnel cakes, shaved ice and beverages including beer, margaritas, lemonade and more. Admission is free. For more information, go to
www.BestDamBarbecue.com. …

If crawfish are more your thing, you can also consider the Straight From the Bayou Crawfish Festival from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday at the Henderson Pavilion, 200 S. Green Valley Parkway in Henderson.

In addition to crawfish imported from Louisiana, the day’s events will include live Cajun, zydeco and blues music, a crawfish-eating contest, etouffee cook-off and crawfish races.

Admission is $10 in advance and $12 on the day of the festival.

For advance tickets, go to www.HendersonLive.com/Pavilion. …

Submit information to Heidi Knapp Rinella, P.O. Box 70, Las Vegas, NV 89125-0070. You also can send faxes to 383-4676 or email her at hrinella@reviewjournal.com. Include your first and last names and, if emailing, put “Taste of the Town” in the subject line. Follow @HKRinella on Twitter.