Marc and I drove up to my parent’s mountain house in Big Canoe this past weekend for a quick two night getaway. Sometimes it’s just nice to get away from the city, breath the fresh mountain air and spend some time with trees. You heard me: trees. There’s a whole theory on how the energy trees emit is so positive to humans and help with all sorts of things. I’m not going to try to give you the facts now, but I totally believe it. When I’m on a hike within the trees on a mountain top, that’s when I feel my best. Call me a tree hugger. That’s fine. I won’t take insult.
Happy place
After a nice long hike on Saturday we cozied up inside to watch some college football while Pooka snored away in front of the fireplace. She loves hikes as much as I do. And one good hike will knock her out for hours. A tired puppy is a happy puppy (no one tell her she’s not a puppy anymore, she totally thinks she still is).
Wilderness dog
Out of nowhere, my sweets loving Marc asked me to bake him some cookies. What’s that you say? Hello 1950s? Maybe after I’m done baking cookies I’ll massage his feet while he sips on the dry martini garnished with a pickled onion that I poured him? I sat for a second before responding and then I thought “sure, I wouldn’t mind some cookies either.” (I blame Marc for the “love” lbs I’ve gained since we started dating). And since the kitchen, living and dining area are all one big floor plan, I could still watch my Gators while they kicked some Georgia butt. I suppose baking him cookies was the least I could do while my team whopped his team.
(The above video is from a different stay in Big Canoe in which Pooka couldn’t figure out what to do with her rawhide. But that’s her regular bed and spot in front of the fire.)
So I got up to see what I could rustle together to make cookies. My mom isn’t much of a baker and being in the mountains we were no where near a store, so my only option was to make sugar cookies. I googled “simple sugar cookie recipes” and all the ones I read required vanilla extract, of which I had none. So I googled substitutes for vanilla extract. There are a few different substitutes, again, none of which I had. One of the subs is rum. My parents aren’t big drinkers but I found an old bottle of whiskey hiding in the back of the pantry so I decided to give that a try instead of the rum. Or instead of the vanilla extract rather.
Then to further make things interesting I cut a few sprigs of rosemary from the bush outside, trimmed the needles from the stalk, chopped it up and added it to the batter. Correction: I added it to half the batter. Marc wasn’t sure of this rosemary idea so I made 12 regular sugar cookies first, then added the rosemary to the batter and made 12 more cookies.
Let me tell you, the rosemary sugar cookies are GOOD! And you couldn’t taste the whiskey at all. So two lessons learned:
- whiskey is a good substitute for vanilla extract
- rosemary and sugar are friends
I didn’t really plan on making a post out of the cookies, but I thought they were so good I had to share, hence the lack of photos. Sorry, I’ll try better next time!
Here’s my modified recipe of the version I stole from allrecipes.com. I halved this recipe and still got 24 cookies, so the below is the halved version. I also didn’t do the extra sugar for decoration, didn’t really think that was necessary, so I excluded it from my recipe below.
ROSEMARY (AND WHISKEY) SUGAR COOKIES
INGREDIENTS
- 1 and 3/8 cup flour (between the 1/3 and the 1/2 line)
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 5/8 cup of butter (one whole stick of butter plus a slice)
- 1 cup white sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon whiskey (or rum or vanilla extract)
- 4 sprigs of rosemary, needles removed and chopped (I used 2 sprigs but remember I only added it to half the batter)
INSTRUCTIONS
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside.
- In a large bowl, with a wooden spoon combine the melted (but not hot) butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg, then add the whiskey.
- Gradually stir in the dry ingredients until just blended. Last add the chopped rosemary and make sure it’s nicely mixed in the dough so you don’t get one huge mouthful of rosemary.
- Roll the dough in between your palms into walnut sized balls and place cookies 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheets.
- Bake for 8-10 minutes until just lightly browned at edges. Allow cookies a few minutes to cool before enjoying! (Insider tip I surprisingly got from Marc: after the cookies have fully cooled, store them in a ziplock bag with a slice of bread. The bread will keep the cookies moist!)