We were late converts to the gospel of Trader Joe’s. We’re ingredients people, and Trader Joe’s sells very few actual ingredients, and when they do sell them, they’re in weirdly little packages and kind of expensive. (Plain old-fashioned oats at Trader Joe’s are going to be in a 5-serving canister and organically harvested by unicorn-riding elves. Also they will be out of them for weeks on end.) I remember thinking that Trader Joe’s was the ideal supermarket for a single older person living alone, and I guess it makes sense that the closer I get to that station in life, the more appealing the place becomes to me. Trader Joes are tiny, with reassuring few choices to make (You want dish soap? Pick between these two fully acceptable fragrances.), relatively inexpensive, full of small treats that make life in these terrible times less awful, and also accommodating of a range of dietary restrictions in ways that make the people who have to eat whatever way they have to eat less sad about the whole situation. And local Trader Joe’s are beginning to unionize, which makes the cheerful employees seem more sincere, you know?
Anyway, one thing Trader Joe’s does especially well for reasons I don’t understand is Things That Go Into Trail Mix: dried fruit, nuts, candy. Their dried mandarins are just crying out to be dipped in dark chocolate and given away in heart-shaped jars for Valentine’s Day (orange you the cutest?!?). The plain French truffles will make all your friends happy for $2.99. And they have many, many varieties of flavored roasted nuts, which we kind of overdid ourselves purchasing last time. Looking at the array in the larder, I found myself dreaming about cookies, with a roasty-toasty browned butter savor and the kind of deep winter citrus-piney sharpness that lets you hope the sun really will return. These absolutely delicious cookies were what I came up with. The base cookie is a riff on these excellent chocolate chip jobbies, and the sparkling sugar is a simplification of the one the Wondersmith uses to gild her magical chocolate gemstones, so this recipe is a Jackson Street Arts original collage. They’re a little bit reminiscent of the white chocolate macadamia nut cookies Mrs. Fields used to hawk at the mall, except these ones actually taste as good as they smell. Although they taste of browned butter, I didn’t actually try them that way, but I will, because I bet they would be even more intensely phenomenal. I’ll keep you posted.
In the meantime, these are rich, buttery, soft, chewy, with a decadent herbal flavor and a satisfying crunch, and worth the minimal time in the kitchen. You can also freeze the cookie balls on a cookie sheet and then toss the frozen dough orbs into a ziploc freezer bag to keep, so you can bake a few at the time anytime you have someone to delight with warm cookies (which is always; you’re someone).
Rosemary-Almond Butter Cookies
1 cup softened butter
2 cups dark brown sugar
2 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
3 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp baking powder
1 tsp flaky sea salt
1/2 tsp ground or chopped dried rosemary
1 package Trader Joe’s Rosemary Marcona Almonds, coarsely chopped
Sanding sugar
1 Tbs. juniper berries
Pinch fresh rosemary leaves
1/2 tsp ground or chopped dried rosemary
1 vanilla bean
Put all the ingredients for the sanding sugar in a shallow bowl, except the vanilla bean. Split the vanilla bean and scrape the seeds into the sugar mixture with the tip of a paring knife. Mix well. (For best flavor, make the sanding sugar a week in advance to let flavors meld.) Set aside.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cream together butter and sugars, then beat in eggs and vanilla until fluffy. Mix in the dry ingredients until combined. Add almonds and mix well. Roll 2 tablespoons of dough at a time into balls and dip one side into the sanding sugar. Place them a couple of inches apart, sugar-side up, on your prepared cookie sheets. Bake in preheated oven for 11 minutes. (The bottom edges will be barely browned.) Let them sit on the baking pan for 2 minutes before removing to cooling rack.
Let us know if you try these, or if you have other favorite Trader Joe’s based recipes in comments. And, as always, like, subscribe, comment and share to keep this content coming.