Rosemary Shortbread from the Garden (the Easy Way)

One of the biggest questions I get asked is, what do you do with all those herbs? And you could just leave your herbs in the garden, because, I mean, they're working so you don't have to. There are millions of ways that you can bring the herbs inside, both for cooking and use in the kitchen, but also just to use all over the house. So today, we're going to take one of my favorite herbs and turn it into a delicious treat that you can share with your friends, your family can give away as gifts, or you can just keep it all to yourself. We're going to make some rosemary shortbread from this incredibly lush rosemary that I've been growing all year long just in the ground right beside my garden. Rosemary will grow back year after year, depending on what climate you're in. So the cool thing, too, is you can cut your rosemary and use this like this any time of year, and it'll grow back. So I'm just always cutting right above a leaf node, and every spot where I cut, it's going to branch off. As long as there's time for the rosemary to keep growing, just do a few harvests like this. You can always dry it and use it for cooking, whatever you don't use for your actual recipe. But you're really not going to need a ton of rosemary for this. But you do want it to be fresh. It makes a big difference of it being fresh versus dried. So I'm going to take a few more sprigs, and then it's time to head inside and make myself some shortbread. All right, we are inside the kitchen, and we are ready to make some delicious shortbread. I've been making this four years after my very first successful year growing rosemary. And. And I know you're going to love it. So this is so simple to make. It is literally five minutes, y'. All. Five minutes. All you need to do this. So first off, we've got two cups of flour, and we're going to put this. You could have a food processor. I have a teeny, tiny food processor, so I'm going to use my Vitamix instead. And I'm just going to put this into the blender. And then we're going to put in one cup of raw sugar. Boom. And then we're going to put in two teaspoons of kosher salt. All right, now it's time for the magical part, the part from the garden, and that is to take some rosemary. Now, the recipe doesn't call for much rosemary, but this is when we ignore the recipe. Trust me on this one. You're gonna want more rosemary. All right? This is what makes it not boring shortbread. It makes it interesting shortbread. So I've already started because these kind of things take a little bit of time for me. But this is the easiest way to strip rosemary. You don't need a special tool or anything. So you're going to grab the rosemary from the tip, and then you're just going to use two fingers, and you just literally slide all the leaves off just like that. You'll need a tool. Okay. Just use your fingers, and then the tip is right here. So now I've got all these leaves, and then we have this handy dandy tool at gardenary. And these are herb scissors. Look how cool these things are. It's like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 blades in one. Ah, love this thing. But buyer beware. You can literally cut off your finger with these things. They're sharp like my. My daughter loves playing with these when we make homemade pizza. And, yeah, we may or may not have used a few bandages on those things. So be careful. This is not for preschoolers, but my gosh, this makes super short work of cutting up your herbs, and you want them in these nice little diced shapes. And. Oh, it's so simple and easy. So. So we're almost there. And what you're going to do here is. It's kind of. Have you ever. I'm not a baker, but I hear bakers say you want to do, like, dry ingredients, wet ingredients. So we're doing the dry ingredients first. So we've got all this delicious, awesome rosemary. We're going to plop this into the dry ingredients. So here we go. And now I think we're ready to do our little. Our little first run. So I'm going to put this on a pretty low setting because there's. It's just dry ingredients here. And we're just going to. We're supposed to pulse this. Maybe I'll turn it up a little bit. Pulse, pulse. So you can see how you need a lot of rosemary because it's already getting kind of mixed up, getting lost in all that flour. Now we're going to cube up this butter. I never remember to soften butter, so I just put it on defrost for a few secs and get it softened a little bit. And now we're going to put it in here, and then we'll start to break this apart, too. So we got one whole cup of butter. Unsalted is what you're supposed to do, because you're going to have a lot of salt. From the kosher salt that you put in there, you put a teaspoon of kosher salt. So back on. And we're back to pulsing. Don't tell me why I did that. Okay. All right. So taking this into my own hands a little bit because my blender isn't loving me. That's okay. So we're gonna pulse this a little bit more, and then if we have to, we'll just take it out and do it by hand. So I think that's close enough. We're gonna take it out and knead it into the baking dish and then put it into the oven. So we're just gonna take this out, take matters into our own hands, as they say, literally. And do a little kneading. I need to do some kneading. And then we'll get it into the dish. The first time I made this, I put in a roll like a shortbread cookie, and it was so good. But I would, like, I rolled it up into wax paper and. And then you just freeze it or refrigerate it to get it hard, and then you slice it and make it like a cookie. And I gave it as gifts, and I actually used this when I threw my first party for my business. That was the dessert was rosemary shortbread cookies. I was so, like, perfect, contessa. You know what I mean? So this is a faster way to do it where you don't have to refrigerate the dough. You just go straight into the oven as is. And this is like, to me, I love the flavor profile of something that's, like, sweet and salty. Like, sweet and savory at the same time. I don't know about you, but to me, like, super sweet. Just only sweet is just like. My kids got some crumble cookies yesterday, and I took one bite, and I just like, did you really spend that much money on those things? So this, to me, is more the kind of sweet I want. And I wish my kids would like it, too, where it's sweet and salty together instead of just so much sweet. All right, so this is an 8 by 11 pan. So it's actually a little bit. Not a little bit. It's a lot too long. It should be an 8 by 8. So I'm running the risk of burning the shortbread because it's going to be a little bit thinner. But we're going to watch it. We're going to be sure that we don't do that. And you're Just going to spread this by hand to all edges. It's ungrazed, and, yeah, it's really super simple. You could have. This is a fun project you could do with your kids in the kitchen. It's a great thing for, like, a teenager that's cooking with you. Anybody who wants to, you know, do a little baking project. Perfect for winter. But really, anytime the rosemary is growing in the garden, we did these in the spring because that's really when the rosemary starts to take off. But I think rosemary has a really great, like, fall winter profile, you know? All right, once you got this done, there's only one little step left, and that is just to take a fork and put holes in the shortbread along the way so that when it cooks, it doesn't poof up. Releases steam as it cooks and. Or bakes is the proper word, I guess. And that. That's it. That's it. That's all you have to do. So literally, blender, you could probably. Now that I've done this, honestly, I would. You could just do this with a spatula. Don't really need the blender. Put it together with your hands, pop it in the oven, 350 degrees, 45 minutes, and you're good to go. Hey, while my shortbread is in the oven, I gotta show you something. This is the brand new 2025 Gardenary Garden Planner. If you love this idea of growing a little bit of your own food, cutting it up, bringing it inside, and making delicious dishes, this is the planner for you. I'm going to show you exactly how to plan your garden. In this planner, we help you make planting plans, and then there's even spaces for you to map out all the recipes you want to make from your own garden all through the seasons. I am in love with this planner, and I cannot wait to send it to you. You can find out how to order yours right away right below this video. All right, let's take this out. Look at it. I think it looks amazing. I think we did it just right. 35 minutes. If you're like me and you have the wrong size pan, looks beautiful on the bottom. We're going to let this sit for a few minutes before we cut it up. All right, the moment of truth has arrived. Can Nicole actually bake something successfully without burning it? I think she did it. I think she did it. She did. All right, we've got this delicious rosemary shortbread. We're gonna test. Taste it. Taste test it. I don't know. You can decide how big you want these little squares to be or rectangles. I'm going to cut mine about every other fork mark. I'm going to use the fork marks as a guide, and then I'm going to cut mine right down the middle. They're going to pop one of these out and look at that and see, so buttery. All the major food groups are in here, okay? We've got butter, sugar, flour, and herbs. So, you know, enjoy. So plate that up. Put a little sprig of rosemary. You have to do this. Like, if you're serving this, add a little party. You got to serve it with a little sprig of rosemary. I just think these are so cute. So delicious. Not too rich, not too sweet. And everybody's going to be asking you for the recipe. And you can just tell them that's a secret and that you can't tell them. No, I'm just kidding. You can just tell them to watch this video. All right. Should we try it? I think we should try it. I'm gonna try this one. It looks really nice. Just a little bit of brown on the edge. And here we go. Oh, my goodness. Delicious. Put a little sea salt on top, maybe a little sugar. A couple little sugar flakes. Go. Steph, don't talk with your mouth full.