White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies

This recipe came about for a couple reasons. I was given a large amount of Macadamia Nuts. Memorial Day was approaching and the next series of recipes are themed in Red, White and Blue. This one of course, being White.

I think it is beneficial at times to revisit the reason behind a holiday. I know my memory was refreshed while researching, I'll share the findings below.

Quoting Wikipedia it states, Memorial Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the last Monday of May Formerly known as Decoration Day, it commemorates U.S. soldiers who died while in the military service.^[1] First enacted to honor Union soldiers of the American Civil War (it is celebrated near the day of reunification after the Civil War), it was expanded after World War I to honor dead Americans from all wars.

By 1865 the practice of decorating soldiers' graves had become widespread in the North. General John Logan, National Commander of the Grand Army of the Republic--the society of Union Army veterans--called for all GAR posts to celebrate a "Decoration Day" on May 30, 1868. There were events in 183 cemeteries in 27 states in 1868, and 336 in 1869. The northern states quickly adopted the holiday; Michigan made "Decoration Day" an official state holiday in 1871 and by 1890 every northern state followed suit.

Again turning to Wikipedia for information I found this information on the Macadamia nut.

Macadamia is a genus of nine species of flowering plants in the family Proteaceae

They are small to large evergreen trees growing to 2–12 m tall. The leaves are arranged in whorls of three to six, lanceolate to obovate or elliptical in shape, with an entire or spiny-serrated margin. The flowers are produced in a long slender simple raceme the individual flowers in white to pink or purple, with four tepals. The fruit is a very hard woody globose follicle with a pointed apex, containing one or two seeds.

The genus is named after John Macadam, a colleague of botanist Ferdinand von Mueller, who first described the genus.^[1] Common names include Macadamia, Macadamia nut, Queensland nut, Bush nut, Maroochi nut, Queen of Nuts and bauple nut; Indigenous Australian names include gyndl, jindilli, and boombera.

Outside of Hawaii and Australia, macadamia is also commercially produced in South Africa, Brazil, California, Costa Rica, Israel, Kenya, Bolivia, New Zealand, Colombia and Malawi. Australia is now the world's largest commercial producer

Here's the recipe:

1 cup butter, softened 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar 1/2 cup white sugar 2 eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 cup coarsely chopped macadamia nuts 1 cup white chocolate chips

1.	Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2.	In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then stir in the vanilla and almond extracts. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt; gradually stir into the creamed mixture. Mix in the macadamia nuts and white chocolate. Drop dough by teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.
3.	Bake for 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until golden brown.