Rosemary Cookies

After a storm like Hurricane Katrina hits, and your city is flooded, you eventually have to rebuild. It may seem small, but one of the things lost, that home cooks wanted to rebuild, was their recipe collections. Those favorite comfort food recipes, cut from the New Orleans' newspaper over the years, that had floated away.

About 6 weeks after Katrina, home cooks turned to the internet and the Times-Picayune responded with "Exchange Alley" connecting readers and finding those lost recipes. Lots of great recipes were found and it was turned into one of my favorite cookbooks "Cooking Up a Storm"  I have made a few of the recipes and they have been worthwhile, but the one I go back to the most is the one found on page 310 this one Rosemary Cookies.

Cooks need the comfort of a good recipe, one that they can make over and over again with great success. To me this is one of those recipes. It is a little shortbread like cookie, that has just the right amount of something different. I make these often and it is one of the most requested recipes from my kitchen.

If I didn't have a rosemary bush in my front yard, I don't know if I would make this as often. I hate buying a spice or a herb for one recipe. Although, I guess I should eat more for my memory, according to this BBC article

Not sure where to put this, but I must add that there is a saying that rosemary grows best in a garden tended by a strong woman. Surprise, I have no problem growing rosemary.

I have made a couple of adjustments to the original recipe. One thing, I do is I always make a double batch, but I never double the rosemary. It was just too much.

Rosemary Cookies:

1 cup: (2 sticks) butter. Room temperature (soft, not melting. soft, but it should retain it's shape)
2 cups: all-purpose unbleached flour
1 cup: powdered sugar
2 tablespoons (can be heaping) minced fresh rosemary leaves.

Squeeze of fresh lemon juice or 1/2 teaspoon of lemon extract (optional)

1-2 tablespoons granulated sugar.

Heat oven to 350 degrees

Mix butter, flour, powdered sugar, rosemary, and lemon juice. Roll into small one inch balls and place in a bowl with the white sugar. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet about 1 1/2 inches apart. Press flat with a cookie press, the bottom of a flat glass, or by hand with the butter wrapper. Once flat these wont spread much more. 

Cook for 10 minutes, cool on a wire rack. Store in an airtight container, best eaten over the next few days. They don't have a long shelf life, but they probably wont last that long anyways.

A couple of hints:
Strip your rosemary leaves from the stems, dice from the top of the clump to the base, discard the base piece. Dice again, and look for the tougher base (where rosemary was connected to stem) pieces. In other words dice, dice, dice and get rid of any big or tough pieces.

If you can afford it and you want a thinner crisper cookie use a higher quality butter, usually labelled European style.