Return of MK

Made my own butter, bitches:

Basil Butter, to be exact. In stick form:

I just was curious, really. I may never do it again.

Actually, I've been cooking a lot with my roomie. I think I'm ready to get back off my ass. I've been too lazy/tired/hungry to photograph any dishes, but things will hopefully be changing.

Congee and oxtail soup tonight as well, thanks to Cindy.

Oh, and some meringues, below. I made them because I had egg whites left over from the shortbread that I also made. It was a big Sunday for us here.

Perfecto Cookies

I had some cookie dough left over from when I made last-day-of-school goodbye cookies for my students. I froze the dough (wrapped in wax paper in a log, then in a plastic bag) and then decided today that I had enough cookie appropriate events coming up that it was a good time to bust out the rest of these guys. Plus I thought it would be really great to heat up the house with a 350 degree oven on a 90 degree day.

The recipe comes from the New York Times perfect cookie search. The first time I used this recipe, I basically used it as an outline and the cookies were just alright. This time around, the only thing I changed was to use "buttons" instead of "discs" for the chocolate. Sticking to the recipe produced some of the best cookies I have ever made or eaten! Resting the batter, high quality chocolate, and a flour blend I think are key here. I guess sprinkling on some salt does something too.

When I made them for my students, I used probably half-sized dollops of batter to make little quarter-sized cookies, which I thought were a nice little treat and spread them out better amongst 30-ish teenagers. The ones from today are about 5 inches in diameter.