Inappropriately Chocolatey Cookies

I saw these cookies on an episode of one of Nigella's shows recently and died at the sight of them. I brought the ingredients around to the boy I babysits' place one night and we made them and they were just as good (if not better) as I imagined!

The biscuit part is actually quite bitter but once you load it up with chocolate chips all bitterness goes away, so don't freak out if you eat the mix and they don't taste right. They will, and with THAT many chocolate chips how can they not?!

I actually made this batch in the photo's with some caramel chips my boyfriend bought and sent me off to bake with. They were pretty sweet and I prefer dark choc chips instead but still so so good!

125g good dark chocolate (the stuff you eat! trust me it tastes best)
150g plain flour
30g cocoa powder
1 tsp bicarb
1 tsp salt
125g butter, softened
75g dark brown sugar
50g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 med (cold from fridge) egg
350g dark chocolate chips (or milk if you prefer, in my case caramel)

Pre-heat oven to 170°c

Melt the 125g of dark chocolate in either the microwave or over a pan of simmering water.

Cream the butter and sugar in a separate bowl (or stand mixer if you have one) then add the melted chocolate and combine.

Beat in the egg and vanilla then stir in the flour, cocoa powder, bicarb and salt.

Finally mix in the chocolate chips.

Scoop the mix out in to 12 equal portions on to 1 or 2 lined baking trays ensuring there's plenty of space between each as they will flatten a lot. Do not flatten them! An ice cream scoop is easiest but I don't actually have one so I just used 2 big tablespoons scraping the mix off one with the other.

 

Bake for approx 18mins or until a cake tester comes out clean. If you hit a chocolate chip try again.

Let cool slightly before removing from the trays and enjoy! Best served warm straight from the oven.

Focaccia

So busy lately with uni commitments, but, a few days ago I received my letter of acceptance in to a masters program in food studies! Hooray! I've finally found a few free hours now so here are some things I've been making lately, starting with this soft fresh home baked focaccia.

Home bread making can be quite easy if you choose the right type of bread to make! I picked up an adorable little European bread making cookbook in Portland on my travels last year and haven't made anything from it till now. I did tweak the recipe a little to suit my needs and I added a caramelised onion and herb topping.

Update: Here are some new pictures of a herb and olive focaccia I made a while back. I did this one in a pizza pan and made it round. Turned out so good!

Basic Focaccia

1 heaped tsp dry yeast
1 tsp sugar or honey
1 tsp salt
good lug of olive oil
1/2 cup warm water initially plus more
3 cups plain flour

Topping

Top it how you wish! I just caramelised 1 large onion and strewed it ontop before baking along with some chopped garlic, rosemary, thyme and a good helping of olive oil however you can push olives in to the bread, slices of garlic, any woody herb or top it with cheese.

Mix yeast, sugar/honey, olive oil and 1/2 cup warm water in a bowl, let sit for ten minutes so the yeast can activate and feed on the sugars.

Add the salt and flour and begin to combine, you will need to add more water at this stage, just add it little by little until you form a soft, pliable but not sticky dough. I prefer to not give measurements as it always varies by type of flour, humidity and temperature.

Knead the dough for a few minutes until it is smooth, place in a floured or oiled bowl, cover and set aside for 40mins, longer if it's a cold day shorter if it is especially hot.

Place the dough back on the bench and punch down the dough, knead the dough for 5 or so minutes and then flatten out to the final shape you want it. (I made a big rectangle but a circle is a popular shape).

Let rise again in a warm spot for another 40mins, after it has risen dimple the dough by gently pushing your fingers on to it. Pre-heat the oven at 200° toward the end of the 2nd rise.

Cover the bread with your topping of choice! Bake for 15-20mins (depending on the thickness of your focaccia) and enjoy!

Pre-bake

Tip: It was very cold in my house and my dough was rising super slow so I turned the oven on its lowest setting for a few minutes then turned it off again and placed the covered tray in the oven to rise, it worked fantastic just make sure your oven isn't too warm or the yeast will die. Only downside is that you have to wait and pre-heat the oven before you can put the bread in.

Tip: For a nice basic rosemary garlic mince 1 clove of garlic with 1 tsp of fresh chopped or 1/2 tsp of dried rosemary, a pinch of salt and 2 tbsp of olive oil. Sprinkle on top just before baking.

Pulled Pork!

Sooo I had a bit of an incident with this recipe. I spent a whole day roasting and simmering the pork, then made a lovely coleslaw accompaniment, thoroughly enjoyed the meal with some good company and accidentally deleted all but one photo from my camera!

Quite devastated by this and obviously it detracts from the quality of the post but I just couldn't not post it! And I'm not ready to go through all of that again any time soon; especially because I still have some in the freezer ;)

Here is the lone solider... coleslaw sadly absent.

No pulled pork will ever live up to the BBQ goodness I had at Hot Wings on Queen st. in Toronto, however, this isn't so bad!

Roasted Pulled Pork

Serves 6

1.5-2kg pork shoulder roast
1 cup beef broth
1 cup of your favourite BBQ sauce (I like anything smokey)
1/2 cup tomato sauce
6 hamburger buns (I won't lie, nothing comes as close as those cheap soft white store bought ones)

rub;
1 tbsp smoked paprika
1 tbsp hot paprika
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
2 tbsp vegetable oil

coleslaw;
1/2 head cabbage, shredded
3 carrots, shredded/grated
2 spring onions, finely sliced (optional)
1/4 cup whole egg mayonnaise
1/4 cup greek/natural yoghurt
2 tbsp white wine/cider vinegar
1 tbsp mustard
1 tsp lemon juice
salt and pepper


Pre-heat oven to 150ºc. Rub spices and oil in to a paste and cover the pork roast. Roast in oven for 5-7 hours until tender and falling apart.

Remove pork and place on a board, shred apart with two forks and place in a pot with sauces and beef stock. Add more/less stock if it's too runny/thick. Bring to a boil then reduce and simmer on a low heat for 1-2 hours; it's reasonably flexible, whatever suits your time constraints.

Meanwhile, shred cabbage, carrot and spring onions for coleslaw and whisk dressing ingredients in a separate bowl.

Toss together coleslaw and serve on top of the sticky sweet pork between two toasted hamburger buns!

Squid and Lentils

Not as gross as it sounds, in fact it's a lentil salad with pan-fried calamari rings.

I was home late from work and wanted something more than just a can of beans. Incidentally part of this did come out of a can - although if I'd had time I'd have cooked the lentils but I was time poor, and feeling pretty lazy. You could throw in some feta, goats cheese or nuts with the salad, whatever you please!

Calamari Lentil and Pumpkin Salad w/Tahini Lemon Dressing

2 main or 4 side serves

1 400g tin or 200g dried puy lentils
2 (scant) cups cubed pumpkin
1 cup (tightly packed) baby spinach
2 spring onions, thinly sliced

200g squid tubes, sliced

dressing;
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp white wine vinegar
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp tahini
salt and pepper to taste


Boil pumpkin (or roast!) and/or lentils in salted water until tender but not mushy.

Let cool slightly and combine salad ingredients in a bowl with dressing ingredients; toss to combine. (whisk dressing together in a separate bowl first if you're worried about the tahini being lumpy)

Saute calamari in a pan with a little olive oil for a minute or two so - until they turn from translucent to just white. Season with a little salt and pepper and take off heat. Let sit for a further 30seconds or so and let the residual heat do the rest of the work.

Toss through lentils or perch on top and don't forget any potential calamari pan juices to go over your salad ;)

Vegetable Lasagna

My housemate is vegetarian so we often eat vegetarian meals. We took a trip to the Adelaide Central Markets recently and bought ingredients for lasagna. It turned out sooo delicious however the photos are pretty average because you can't see all the layers of veg! :( We used eggplant, zuchinni, pumpkin and mushrooms all pre-roasted and baked between chewy pasta sheets with a tomato sauce and dotted with pieces of salty Danish feta. Mmm!

Lasagna!

Serves 4-6

1 large zuchinni
1 large eggplant
300g button mushrooms, sliced
3 cloves garlic, chopped
500g pumkin
1 700ml jar tomato passata (tomato puree)
1 cup crumbled Danish feta
250g dried lasagna sheets
olive oil
salt and pepper


Pre-heat oven to 200 degrees Celsius

Slice eggplant (around 5mm), pumkin and zuchinni (around 2mm thin) (easily done with a mandoline), lay on to baking trays (you'll need a few) and drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast for 10-15mins or until softened and lightly browned but not fully cooked. They will further cook in the lasagna.

Meanwhile, saute mushrooms and chopped garlic in some olive oil and set aside.

In a lasagna pan assemble layers of roasted eggplant, zuchinni, mushroom and pumpkin as you see fit adding tomato puree in with layers to moisten (you might not need it all) and distributing the feta evenly. Make sure to leave a little to sprinkle on top though!

Turn oven down to 180 and bake covered for 40-45mins or until pasta is cooked but not soggy.

Leave to sit for 15mins before cutting and serving!

Tip: The pan I use for lasagna makes 6 perfectly portioned slices but if you only have a larger pan then you may want to increase the amount of ingredients so that it's nice and thick!

Baked Cheesecake

Donna Hay wins again! I turned to her cheesecake recipe because it looked so super easy and delicious when I saw it on masterchef a couple of years back. It turned out amazing and didn't take much time at all to prepare. I wish I'd had some berries or passionfruit to lay over the top but I completely forgot when I did the grocery shop, no worries though because it was just delicious all on its own.

I gave all the measurements in grams because I figure you'd be getting those scales out to measure the cream cheese and ricotta so no need to dirty the measuring cups! Also, I advise using a food processor for this, unfortunately I only have a mini one so I turned to the blender and that actually worked really well! So there's your backup plan. Hand beaters are not a good plan B. I would know.

Donna Hay's Classic Baked Cheesecake

330g softened cream cheese
500g ricotta cheese
4 eggs
295g cups caster sugar
60ml cup lemon juice
1 tbsp grated lemon rind
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 tbsp cornflour
1 1/2 tbsp water (to mix with cornflour)

For the Base

40g cup almond meal
105g cup plain flour
55g caster sugar
90g chopped butter


Pre-heat oven to 150 degrees Celsius.

Start with the base, whiz all the ingredients in a food processor until they form a crumbly texture, tip in to a lined cake tin and press in to the bottom (use your hands and then smooth out with a spoon to make sure it's all nice and even).

Bake for 15 minutes or until golden. Set aside to cool while you make the filling.

For the filling, add all but cornflour and water to a food processor. Combine cornflour and water separately and add in. Process until smooth and pour in to the tin.

Tap to remove any air bubbles and bake for 1 hour. Turn the oven off but leave the door closed for a further hour then remove and chill.

Tip: I noticed that my cake was still wobbly in the middle after the first hour and completely forgot about the whole 2nd hour thing so I baked it longer until it was set, it still turned out great but ended up a little brown around the edges so don't fret too much if there's a little raw bit in the middle that will cook further in to the 2nd hour.  Also, don't be tempted to open the oven and take the cake out early as it will crack if it cools too rapidly.

Sugo d'Arrosto

So I read about this sauce in a book I have and was drooling through the whole chapter. I made some tortellini recently and decided to pair the two, it was filled with chicken and covered in a beefy sauce which I thought might be a bad pairing but it was seriously delicious. I regret nothing!

I changed a couple of things around from the original recipe but I'll just write the original and add my changes in brackets.

Sugo d'Arrosto (Sage and Meat Sauce)

1 tbsp butter
6 large fresh sage leaves
1 clove garlic, peeled
1 1/2 cups beef broth
1 (scant) cup grated parmesan

This will make enough for 500g of dried pasta or 4 generous serves of fresh.

Melt butter in a pan, add sage leaves and garlic clove (I used 2 cloves and more sage), brown lightly.

Add broth and simmer for a moment then remove from heat (I added some salt and pepper also and removed the garlic before the next step).

Toss through pasta and parmesan cheese. Enjoy!


Tip: Because the sauce only coats lightly make sure its well seasoned otherwise it will be bland. Also of course home made beef stock is going to be the best but if you want something super easy and quick you could substitute for a good quality store bought liquid stock.