C is for Cookie

My cookie craving still not satiated,  I decided to get baking. I thought I'd jot down the recipe, while I'm digesting the dozen or so samples I scarfed, and before I slip into a sugar induced coma.

These cookies are a buttermilk base, with green tea, ginger, and honey. They are very light, moist, and cake-like. Green tea and lemon/buttermilk add a great sour note, and a very light glaze keeps them from being overly sweet (which means I can eat a gazillion of them). I made this up as I was going, so they haven't really been tested, but I love them already, and don't want to forget what I did.

Green Tea Buttermilk Cookies

Adapted from Gourmet, January 2008 

I'm not sure how many cookies this yields, as I ate some along the way. Oops. 

Stuff

Cookies
1/3 cup buttermilk (or 1 tsp lemon juice and enough milk to total 1/3 cup)

2 bags of green tea (I use Celestial Seasonings)

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon powdered ginger
3/4 stick unsalted butter (softened, or not, if you find it difficult to plan ahead)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup honey (I used raw)
1 large egg (or 1/4 cup Egg beaters)
1 teaspoon lemon juice


Glaze
1 bag of green tea
1/4-1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
1-2 tablespoons of honey
1/2 teaspoon corn starch

From the Tube

For most of my life, I have been on some form of antihistamine and decongestant. My allergies are epic. Recently, however, I decided to stop taking the decongestant. The reasoning behind this maneuver is a bit muddled and long-winded. The important parts are that I stopped taking it and that I am now able to sleep for several hours a night/day (like I'm a person!) and I have had lots of sinus drainage that is filling my digestive tract. Yummy.

Because of the copious amount of snot, I don't feel hungry, ever. This has been a problem all of my life. Everytime someone says some variation of "I only eat when I'm hungry," with the requisite accompaniment of pretentious snobbery, I secretly hope they get to experience my lack of appetite some day. Several times a week, I become light headed and weak, because I haven't eaten enough. Not that I don't want to eat, but that I just don't feel like it. I often just  forget to eat. And, when I remember, it is hard to find something I can force down. My relationship with food is much like that of someone looking at a dessert menu at a restaurant with giant portions; I want to have something, but I'm just too full.

So, when I do feel like eating, I more than make up for the lean times. (My grandma would be sure to point out that I've never been lean, and that I should probably have used a different word. It's amazing I don't have more issues, really.) Tonight, for example, I had an incredibly strong craving for cookie dough.  A monstrous craving that would not be subsided with cookie dough ice cream or chocolate chips -not that I had either- it was of the specific and unyielding variety. Since I did not have the ingredients to make cookie dough, I decided that I must run to Wal-Mart to acquire them immediately. I had to go to Wal-Mart, because this particular craving hit me at about 2 AM. It is well below freezing, and a 20 minute drive one way, but, I reasoned, I also needed ink for the printer, and I was completely out of vinegar. Mika (see below) had just peed on the closet door, and I needed the vinegar to clean it up.