Cookie time! Pistachio and Dark Chocolate, and Cranberry with White Chocolate

I have a bit of an obsession with baking cookies.

From the irresistibly chocolately peanutty ones, to the classic choc chip, there is room for them all in my kitchen!

I do have a favourite “baseline” cookie recipe, to which all sorts of extras can be added, but I thought I would branch out and try something else, to see if it improved the finished product, or even if it changed it to a noticeable degree. My usual recipe calls for the butter to be melted first, cooled slightly, and then added to the sugar. This recipe called for the butter to be creamed with sugar, more like a cake recipe.

Chocolate and nuts - perfection

Fruit and chocolate - sweet and flavourful!

These turned out beautifully -  I will be using pistachio a lot more, this is part one of a three part pistachio extravaganza!

Ingredients

• 1 ½ cups plain flour
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp bicarb of soda
• ½ cup butter, at room temperature
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 tsp vanilla sugar
• 100g pistachios
• 75g chocolate chips
• (I also decided to do white chocolate and cranberry cookies with the same recipe, so I used an additional 75g dried cranberries, and 75g white chocolate)

Method

Preheat oven to 170 degrees

Stir together the flour, salt and leavening agents.

Beat together the butter and sugars for a few minutes until lighter in colour. Add in the vanilla and egg, and beat together again. Gradually add in the flour mixture.

At this  point I halved the mixture into two separate bowls, in one I added the dark chocolate and pistachio, and to the other I added white chocolate and cranberries.

Spoon some mounds of dough onto baking trays lined with greaseproof paper. I usually get six to a sheet.

Bake in the preheated oven for 12 minutes, allow to cool on the baking tray for a few minutes and then transfer to cool on a wire rack.

I may have eaten some when hot from the oven and it was goooood.

Packaged up for a picnic! Finally got new napkins.

Chocolate Orange Mousse

Channeling the Swedish chef up in here! It's nearly the weekend, so I thought I'd conjure up a little treat.

I love recipes that use some random ingredient to make something totally unlike the original product. This chocolate mousse is everything one could want: bubbly, thick, rich, and deeply flavourful.

And where does the perfect texture come from? Marshmallows! So, no faffing around with egg whites, this is pure divine inspiration.

I have made it a lot in the past, in plain chocolate flavour, as well as chocolate mint, which all work deliciously. The chocolate mint is a perfect after-dinner treat, but the chocolate orange is a big hug in a cup.

If I am being fancy, I will use these lovely glass honeycomb mugs that my mum has been known to kindly lend me. 

The mint version - my mum has the best things!

In the absence of those, I used some mini paper cups leftover from Christmas. A pinch of nutmeg and cinnamon in the recipe could really increase the festiveness if made in winter! Espresso mugs also work well, or small glasses, as well as ramekins.

Chipotle Chili Chicken Burritos

Chipotle chili on the bottom, fresh jalapeno on the top

Okay, the blog has been leaning a little to the sweet-toothed side this last month, so I think this is the perfect time to post one of my favourite recipes of the last year.

My life has been transformed! And it’s all because of a roasted, dried, smoky chilli. For so long I have seen these in recipes and just subbed in a jalapeno because I didn’t know any better OR where to find the damn things. I was wrong. SO WRONG. I should have made it my life’s mission to find one of these suckers as quickly as my feet would take me.

And where did I come upon these little morsels of spice and flavour?  I picked up my chipotle chilis at my teeny local Tescos! High five for high-street grocery shops. So, there is no excuse.

Burritos are fast becoming my favourite food ever, and I order them whenever possible. Zapatista’s in Newcastle is my kind of fast-food. Forget a burger and ketchup, I want the burrito and guacamole. I thought I should have a go at making my own, and OH HEAVENLY FATHER they came out amazingly.

You need these in your life. You don’t know it yet. But you do.

Chocolate Coconut Icelollies

Okay, so it has been really hot in the UK these past few days, so I bought an ice-lolly mould. Don’t judge me, I needed it. It was warm! It is still warm! I'm not built for this kind of heat when I'm not on holidays.

Remember Mini Milks? They were my favourite lollies as a child (and now.. cough). These are pretty much the (simple!) homemade, coconut version of the chocolate one.

Well, why are you still reading? Go, make haste and get making these bad boys, before we all melt!

Chessboard Cake

OMG SO IMPRESSIVE.

Is what your friends will be saying about this kickass cake. Now, mine never turns out *quite* how it is supposed to, but c’est la vie. It is meant to be a well demarcated "chessboard" pattern inside when cut, but mine never looks like that. However, it looks cool and tastes amazing, I call it ‘lava lamp’ cake and everyone is happy.

..And it relatively simple to make, all you need is a couple of cake tins, some piping bags and the will to impress.

I had a teensy bit of cake batter left over which I would PERISH before throwing out, so I also piped a few cupcakes.

I would hope that this blog conveys the real way that I cook (ie: occasionally by the seat of my pants!). I don’t always have everything to hand, I improvise, there's flour everywhere, I photograph on auto and then I share and EAT.

The war/prep-zone

Peanut Butter Hummus

Hello Nigella fans!

I’m not going to lie to you, when I first read the name of this recipe I felt it was akin to using meat from a jar, or deep-frying a Mars Bar. Maybe something other people did, but not in my kitchen.

Strike me down for my folly!

I love hummus and could live on it. Easily, live on it all day. My main issue with making my own is that I can’t seem to source tahini paste. Not to be foiled, I have made my own tahini paste before, but that didn’t turn out amazingly and left a grainy texture to the hummus.

So, I turn to alternatives. If you think about it tahini paste (sesame seeds and oil) isn’t too far from peanut butter. I write that confident in the knowledge that my home economics teacher isn’t reading.

I love the texture of this; light without being frothy, and chunky without being gritty. I whipped this bad boy up 30 minutes before a picnic, and it went down a storm with the boyfriend! A fridge staple from now on, perfect for lunches served with tortilla wraps or crisps, or chopped veg (hah!).

Of course, you can buy chickpeas dried and soak them overnight, but I rarely have the foresight, and the canned stuff tastes grand to me!

Strawberry Icecream

All hail the strawberry!! So versatile. Of course they are perfect in a bowl with a sprinkle of sugar or cream, but if you’re willing to put a bit more effort in then you can create this sumptuous ice-cream. I'm currently on my jolly holidays in Bournemouth:

..and this icecream reminds me of the creamy deliciousness you can get on the pier.

My mother, who knows me very well, got me Nigella’s summer cookbook, and it is full of delicious light sweets and savouries. Of course, I flicked right to the ice-cream section. I’m only human.

It does take a bit of effort, making your custard-base (the only way to do ice-cream) and prepping the strawbs, then letting it cool, then churning in the good old ice-cream maker, then freezing. But I can’t think of a better way to spend my day, especially when the outcome is food perfection.