White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies

My job is pretty sweet.  I admit when I first started lifeguarding, I was a nervous wreck who couldn't do shifts longer than about four hours.   I complained and wanted to quit my job and so on.  I'm glad I didn't quit, because after a while I started to realize how lucky I was to have such a great job.  The people I work with are all really cool, and the actual work part of it isn't so terrible either.

We have staff meetings about once a month.   In our staff meetings we practice lifeguard fitness and first aid skills, talk about things we need to change/start doing/etc. and we eat.  More often than not, our meetings are "potluck" meetings.  It's always fun to see what the other lifeguards bring.  We've had everything from lasagna to cupcakes, homemade potstickers to brownies, spinach dip to.... you get the picture!

Last night for our staff meeting I made the white chocolate macadamia nut cookies from Joy The Baker. I was supposed to "brown the butter"... but my butter never got brown... Maybe I didn't cook it long enough. Oh well, they still turned out great!

White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies

From Joy The Baker's recipe here.

1/2 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar

2 tbsp. milk

1 large egg

1 tsp. vanilla

1 3/4 cups flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1/8 tsp. salt (I omitted this since my macadamia nuts seemed really salty)

1/2 cup coarsely chopped macadamia nuts

1 cup white chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350F. In a medium saucepan, melt the butter. Stir it around and cook it until brown bits appear in the bottom of the pan. Again, this never happened for me... maybe you'll have better luck! Anyhow, when you're done cooking the butter, set it aside to cool for a moment. Measure out the flour and baking soda and set aside.

Combine the butter and brown sugar and beat together for about two minutes. Add the egg, and beat for another minute. Then add the milk and vanilla, and mix it all together. Dump the flour/soda mixture into the egg/sugar/butter mixture and mix until just combined. Stir in the nuts and chocolate.

Take chunks of dough (however big you want your cookies), roll them into nice balls and arrange them on a cookie sheet. Flatten them slightly. Bake for approximately 9-15 minutes, depending on the size of your cookies. When they are golden brown, take them out and let them cool for a few minutes before transferring them to a rack to cool completely.