Russian Tea Cookies aka Mexican Wedding Cookies/ Snowballs (w/ recipe)

A few notes on the recipe; first off, instead of straight up vanilla extract, I did a mix of 1/2 teaspoon vanilla and 1/2 teaspoon almond extract because I just love the flavor that almond brings to cookies like this. With the ground nuts already in the recipe, the almond adds some more nutty flavor to them. Next, I wanted to cook these on a whim so I went with softening my butter in the microwave. Most microwaves have a "soften" setting, and for me it melted the butter a little more than I wanted. I would say to soften your butter by leaving it out at room temperature for about 30 minutes instead of using the microwave. Finally, to grind up the nuts I just used a mix of pecans and walnuts and threw them in my food processor. You could chop them by hand, or possibly use a coffee grinder (I would research a bit before doing this just in case your grinder can't handle chopping nuts for some reason).

INGREDIENTS (makes about 40)
1 cup (2 full sticks) butter or margarine, softened
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups (18 ounces) all-purpose flour
3/4 cup finely chopped nuts
1/4 teaspoon salt
Powdered sugar (for rolling after baking)

1. Heat oven to 400ºF.
2. Mix softened butter, 1/2 cup powdered sugar and the vanilla in large bowl. Stir in flour, nuts and salt until dough holds together.
3. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Place about 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheet.
4. Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until set but not brown. Remove from cookie sheet. Cool slightly on wire rack.
5. Roll warm cookies in powdered sugar; cool on wire rack. Roll in powdered sugar again.