Rosemary and Lavender Shortbread Cookies

While walking across the street to my car I saw a empty, discarded box of Walker’s shortbread cookies. And the craving hit me. Like that. Inspired by garbage!

I went home, threw some butter on the counter, and then realizing it was getting pretty late had to throw the butter back into the fridge. Attempt two occurred the next day, this time with buttery success.

Rosemary and lavender are two of my favorite scents and flavors. Combined in the right balance in a buttery cookie? Oh. My.

I’ve tried to grow lavender in the past. Sadly and unsurprisingly, it either never grew, or grown plants would wither away and die. So, next best thing, culinary lavender bought in bulk from the local natural food store. My rosemary is a different story. It’s the one plant that has survived my black thumb, bless it’s fragrant, piney, herby heart. And it always forgives me a little bit of pruning, especially in a good cause such as the incorporation into cookies.

Roasted Cornish Game Hens with Wild Rice Stuffing and Zucchini Potato Bake

I spent Christmas 2008 with my boyfriend and his family. We hopped from house to house visiting different relatives, and food was to be had all over the place. Though I’ve only made one pie in my life (a poor, ugly thing that was rock hard in parts of the crust, runny and very un-creamy in its attempt at becoming a triple coconut creme pie, though occasionally tasty when one pursued it long enough), I made a cherry pie and a pumpkin pie to share at the different events.

So come Christmas, I had no Christmas dinner to prepare save for the one for my cats, Finn and Leopold. However, Christmas Eve was a different story, and I wanted to go to town and make something special.

Roasted rosemary Cornish game hens with wild rice and onion stuffing.

For once, I actually did a fair job of planning the meal in advance (versus my usual “vague notion of what shall go forth into the oven this week”) and had all the necessary ingredients in the pantry or else, purchased a day or two in advanced. I purchased two Cornish game hens, thawed them out overnight, and then in the fridge while I was at work, and came home early to get to work on roasting them with tons of fresh rosemary.

Zucchini potato bake makes for a (somewhat) healthy and delicious side dish.

Rosemary Garlic Focaccia

Last week I made a tomato lentil curry stew for dinner. While in retrospect it was more than hearty enough to fill one up for a good long while, I thought that a side of bread for sopping sounded like sound logic. Having forgotten to purchase a loaf of bread in my previous three trips to stores, however, and being unwilling to go the to grocer once again where my will would crumble and I would end up leaving with probably cornish game hens and capers, which I would just know I’d find some use for eventually…I bit the bullet and decided to go forth and just make some bread myself. And in this case, no so much bread as warm, fresh focaccia. Oooh.

Rosemary Garlic Focaccia

Credit here for the recipe goes to Always Order Dessert. I didn’t make any changes to the ingredients, but because I lack a fancy schamancy mixer, I just did this by hand. Humanity has not thrived this long to be thwarted by a lack of Cusinart mixers.

I made the dough the night before and threw them in the fridge so I could bake them upon returning home the next evening. While I bustled around and made the tomato lentil stew, I let the dough warm up and rise before I punctured the dough with my finger to create the little dents and bubbles and all this before I added the olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper, and rosemary (fresh off my little rosemary plant that sits on my bedroom window sill and has somehow survived my care for the last two years). I popped them in the oven and popped them right back out once they were golden. The smell of the bread wafting through the apartment was heavenly. Even the cats kind of went nuts.

My boyfriend and I gobbled them up, and this recipe officially went into my book of “heavy-rotation recipes.”