Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies

So here's the story behind these cookies.... my youngest son is doing a project at school where they have to work in groups to make and sell cookies. He and his group have been working hard on market research, planning, budgeting and advertising.

For weeks now, he and I have been in deep discussions about chocolate chip cookies; whether he should crush up left over Easter eggs (which is what I've been doing) or use packaged chocolate chips, what kind of chocolate chips he should use (milk, white or dark), whether he should use cocoa or real chocolate in the dough. Tonight, at the last minute, he tells me that his group has decided that the cookies should be mint chocolate chip now. Oh, and he needs the recipe by tomorrow. He bats his eyes at me, smiles and then skips off to bed, leaving me with my laptop on my lap desperately scouring every foodie site I can find for a good recipe for mint chocolate chip cookies.

Finally, it occurs to me I could just modify my chocolate chip recipe fairly simply (I'm tired... it was a late night last night and an early morning this morning... and now my brain's not working so well). So here's the (rather delicious) result. This recipe makes around 28 cookies (depending on how big you make them).

Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients:

• 125g unsalted butter (softened)
• 180g soft brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp peppermint essence
• 150g plain flour
• 100g self-raising flour
• 40g cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
• pinch salt (not iodised salt)
• 150g chocolate chips (dark, milk or white)

Method:

Preheat the oven to 150C. Line two baking trays with baking paper.

Beat the butter and sugar on high speed for 5 minutes until pale and creamy (I do the whole of this step in the food processor). Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the peppermint essence, then sift in the flours, cocoa, bicarb. soda and salt. Mix on low speed until combined. Transfer dough to bowl, add chocolate chips and stir well.

Wash your hands, but don't dry them, then roll the mixture into 50g balls (about the size of a golf ball or a teaspoon full of the dough) and place on the prepared trays. Press the dough balls down gently to flatten a little.

Bake the cookies for 15 - 18 minutes, until lightly golden and slightly firm to the touch.

Cool on trays for 5 minutes, then cool thoroughly on wire rack. Store in airtight container (will last up to a week).

Tips:

1. Keeping your hands wet when you're rolling the cookie dough stops the dough from sticking to your hands and keeps it in a nice round ball.
2. You can store this dough in the freezer by rolling it into a cylinder shape and covering with plastic wrap (Glad wrap/Cling wrap). The cookies can be cut off the roll and baked straight from the freezer. Just add 3 - 5 minutes to the cooking time.
3. Cookie dough can be frozen for up to 1 month before needed.

Mango Muffins

I've been reading Julia Child's autobiography/biography My Life in France on my newly acquired Kindle and it just confirms for me how much I love her. It's her openness and willingness to throw herself wholeheartedly into her new life with husband Paul in France that I find so enchanting. That, and of course, her absolute fascination with food, particularly French cuisine. I fully intend to wax lyrical about the book and about Julia herself, but not here.

This blog is purely for the fruits of such inspiration. So, duly inspired by Julia Childs and the fact that I bought two crates of mangoes yesterday and am casting around for what to do with them before they spoil, I've come up with a recipe for Mango Muffins.


Mango Muffins
Ingredients

• 1/4 cup (65ml) vegetable oil - don't use olive oil, the flavour is too strong
• 1/2 cup (125ml) milk - a little extra if the mix is too dry
• 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 cup (110g) white sugar
• 1 3/4 cups (220g) plain flour
• 1 cup (or 1 large) mango, peeled and diced - be adventurous and liberal with the mango
• spray oil

Method

Preheat oven to 190C. Oil a 12 cup muffin tin or use paper liners.

In a small bowl, combine oil, milk and egg. Beat lightly.

In a large bowl, mix flour, salt baking powder and sugar. Toss in diced mango and stir to coat with flour. This is an important step and is often missed out. When you add fresh fruit to cake or muffin mix, it's important to coat it in the dry ingredients/flour mix to stop the fruit from disintegrating when cooking.

Pour in milk mixture and fold together trying not to crush the mango too much.

Spoon mixture into muffin cups. Bake in preheated oven for 25 minutes or until the tops bounce back from the touch and a skewer inserted comes out clean.

Cool 10 minutes and remove from the tin.

These are deliciously light, soft and fluffy muffins. They can be stored in an airtight container for 2 to 3 days or frozen...if they last that long!

More to come...

The absence of posts doesn't indicate any lack of cooking going on in my house. In fact, I have been feverishly cooking for DH's 40th birthday celebrations with 65 guests. So recipes will be forthcoming shortly, but as you can imagine, the pressures of organising and cooking for said birthday function has kept me away from my other love... writing.

Fear not, dear reader, I'm baaaack...and will be posting with pics again very soon.

Easy Cheesey Snacks

This super-simple recipe was inspired by the fact that I ran out of packaged lunch box snacks to put in my boys' lunch boxes today and couldn't quite muster the courage required to brave the supermarket. Cheese straws; much maligned, much forgotten, but such a quick, easy snack that's delicious. You can make them a bit more posh by using different cheeses, as I've done here, or keep them simple with reliable cheddar or Colby (for those who like their cheese creamy but essentially flavourless).

Cheese Straws
Ingredients

• 2 sheets ready-made frozen puff pastry (you could go to the trouble of making your own, but really, why bother when there are great quality puff pastries available?)
• Red Leicester cheese
• Parmesan cheese

Method

Preheat oven to 200C.

Slice very finely or grate cheese over pastry sheet (one cheese on one pastry sheet).

Press the cheese into the pastry sheet. The pastry should have thawed sufficiently in the time it took you to grate/shred the cheese for you to press the cheese firmly into it.

Cut the pastry into long, thin strips (straws). Yes, I do this after I put the cheese on top and it works well.

Line a biscuit tin or flat baking sheet with baking paper. Arrange the straws on the tin with 2 - 5 cm between straws to allow for expansion.

Bake for 10 - 15 minutes (mine took 13 minutes). Allow to cool completely on baking tin out of oven. Store in an airtight container.

A few final notes:

• Remember that firmer cheeses will work better in this recipe. The soft cheeses melt too quickly and tend to run all over the place causing a mess! 
• You can dress these straws up by sprinkling herbs (rosemary chopped up very fine works well, as does sage) or paprika for more adult tastes. 
• If you're using a blue cheese, go for the firm blue cheeses rather than the blue castello.

Something's Fishy

As part of the "no red meat during the week" campaign, we've been increasing our intake of seafood. Bouillabaisse seemed like the perfect fit.

I've wanted to have a go at this scrumptious seafood soup for a long time, but have avoided it largely because my youngest son hasn't coped well with seafood. His intolerance seems to be improving now and, more importantly, he's keen to try more.

I was afraid this was going to be a complicated dish with lots of obscure ingredients, but it turned out to be surprisingly easy.

So here's my version of a perennial favourite.

Cheat's Bouillabaisse
Ingredients:

• 2tbsps extra virgin olive oil
• 1 1/2 red onions, finely sliced
• 3 cloves garlic, crushed and chopped
• 1 tin diced tomatoes
• 4 bay leaves
• generous pinch of saffron
• salt and pepper
• orange peel from 1 orange (use a zester)
• 1 cup good white wine
• 750ml fish stock, warmed
• 500g clams
• 250g prawns (shelled and deveined)
• 250g scallops
• 500g Spanish mackerel, cubed
• 1 smoked trout, skinned, filleted and shredded
• 1/2 cup coriander /cilantro leaves (leaves only)

Rouille:

• 2tbsps hot fish stock
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1/4 cup white bread, crusts cut off
• 1 red chilli
• 1/2tsp salt

Method:

Heat the extra virgin olive oil in a heavy based pan. Add onions, garlic and bay leaves and fry till onions are translucent.

Add tomatoes, saffron and orange peel and cook gently for around 5 minutes.

Add white wine and fish stock and bring to the boil. Turn heat down to a simmer and add salt and pepper to taste. Simmer for 20 minutes.

This is a good time to make the rouille if you're using it. Put fish stock in the bottom of a blender or food processor. Add garlic, chilli, salt and bread. Blend until very smooth. With the food processor still running, add the olive oil in a slow drizzle (it's like making mayonnaise). Stop blending when the oil is incorporated. Place the rouille in a bowl ready to serve with the soup - use sparingly like you would Tabasco sauce.

When the soup has simmered for 20 minutes, raise the heat and add clams. When clams pop open (this is fun, it's a bit like watching popcorn - use a glass lid on your pot so you can see it), add the mackerel. Cook for 5 minutes.

Add scallops and prawns and cook for a further 5 minutes.

To serve, place the bouillabaisse in a bowl, sprinkle the shredded smoked trout and the coriander leaves over the top. Allow each person to add their own rouille.

Serves 4 - 6

What's Up Doc?

I've been wanting to try my hand at cooking rabbit for some time now. As a meat, it completely intrigues me. Not quite red meat in a beef kind of way, but not white meat like chicken or pork either. So today, I decided to get some from my lovely local butcher (the trip there is always fun since he flirts like mad with all the customers!). He very kindly chopped it up for me and gave me lots of encouragement.

I trawled both recipe books and the internet for recipes and in the end, came up with a mish-mash that I'm pretty happy with. It's a bit reminiscent Coq au vin, but here it is...

Rabbit Stew
Ingredients:

• 1 rabbit (chopped into small pieces by the lovely butcher)
• 2 brown onions, finely sliced
• 2 large cloves garlic, whole
• 3 strips pancetta, finely sliced
• 3 medium carrots, cubed
• 3 bay leaves
• 4 - 5 tbsps extra virgin olive oil
• 8 medium-sized button mushrooms, halved
• 1/2 small fennel bulb, finely sliced
• 1/3 cup good red wine
• 2 tbsps good quality balsamic vinegar
• 1 litre water or chicken stock

Flour for dredging:

• 1/2 cup plain flour
• 2 tsps salt
• 2 tsps smoked paprika (Spanish paprika is really good)

Method:

Preheat oven to 190C.

Mix flour, salt and paprika. Dredge rabbit in flour and keep aside.

Heat oil in heavy based pan and fry pancetta strips till crispy. Remove and reserve for the end.

Brown garlic pods gently. Remove and reserve.

Brown rabbit pieces, a few at a time. Remove and reserve.

Fry onions and mushrooms. Add a little salt (a pinch is plenty) as this helps to soften the onions quickly. When the onions are translucent, add the browned garlic, fennel, carrot and bay leaves. Fry for a few minutes until fennel softens.

Arrange rabbit pieces on top. Add water/stock, red wine and balsamic vinegar. Taste for seasoning and add salt if required.

Bring to the boil then transfer to the oven. Cook in oven for 1 1/2 hours or until rabbit is tender and comes easily off the bone.

Sprinkle the reserved pancetta on top just before serving. Serve hot.

Ebony and Ivory....

Brownies seem to be making a come back and this weekend, I offered to make brownies for my godson's birthday party. Never one to take the road most travelled, I wondered what brownies would be like with white chocolate instead.

Let me tell you, they're delicious. That's a huge admission coming from someone who divides the world into "those who like white chocolate" and "those with taste". This particular use of white chocolate has even me admitting that it may have its uses.

Needless to say, they don't come out a rich brown colour, but they are a satisfying caramel colour. My youngest son has decided that they also deserve a name change, so in our house, we're calling them "Whities".

Whities
Ingredients

• 125g white chocolate (roughly chopped or use "melts")
• 125g butter, cubed
• 4 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups caster (superfine) sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract (get the best quality)
• 1 cup plain flour, sifted
• 1/4 tsp baking powder, sifted
• 100g peanuts, roughly chopped

Method
Preheat the oven to 160C. Grease a 20 x 30cm baking tin and line base and sides with baking paper.

Melt the chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of hot water, stirring until smooth. Allow to cool a little.

In an electric mixer or food processor, beat the eggs, sugar and vanilla for 3 - 4 minutes or until pale and fluffy. Beat in the cooled chocolate mixture. Add the sifted flour and baking powder and beat until smooth. Stir in the nuts.

Spoon the misture into the prepared baking tin and smooth the surface. Bake for 20 - 25 minutes or until caramel coloured and the top has formed a crust. DO NOT OVERCOOK - this isn't a cake and should be soft and moist in the middle.

Allow to cool in the tin. Remove and cut into squares or rectangles. Dust with icing sugar. Whities can be stored in an airtight container for 3 - 4 days or frozen for longer.

For the regular Brownies, substitute the same amount of dark chocolate.