Three Way Cookies

My usual baking hit rate is birthdays, dinner parties and miscellaneous occasions where I've impulse-bought something that calls for a crumblin'. Two lots of sweet treats in less than a week is some sort of record for me. Alas, a craving for chocolate has struck me down, and combined with a stack of baking ingredients that have been sitting sullenly in my spice rack for the past eleven months (since my last foray into birthday baking for three birthday weekends in a row), I decided to do something about it.

Cookies aren't something that TheBloke and I normally have in the house (choosing to expand our waistlines with jamon et fromage instead), but they're quick to make, don't require me to pull the stand mixer out of the back of the cupboard, and can be easily bagged and tagged for TheBloke to take to work with him. (As an aside, while baking these I got into an internet fight with a random guy on Facebook who took offense at my anti-pornography stance. I've concluded that being called a "femo" as an insult is actually good for the constitution. It gives one an opportunity to ask oneself the hard questions, like 'is it fair to judge intelligence based on an individual's use of poorly thought out sarcasm?'; 'is arguing about ethics in a virtual medium with idiots ever productive?'; 'can you be a "femo" and still bake your husband cookies?'; and most importantly, 'why aren't you finishing off last week's management theory workbook questions?' But I digress.)

The best triple choc cookies I've ever eaten were a batch that my Mum posted to me when I was at boarding school. This recipe is admittedly little more grown up (using 70% cocoa for both varieties rather than copious amounts of sweetened milk and white chocolate), and satisfy in a single (or double... hehehe...) dose, rather than in teenage-sized handfuls. I think there's a time and a place for both, but given my allegedly man-hating womb is still childfree, it's good to make the most of the finer things while the eating audience is just the two of us! Their naughty name is obviously a calculated effort on my behalf to cut down my hard-arsed no-fun femme-core reputation. Der.

Three Way Cookies

Ingredients
Makes two dozen

Basic Batter
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup baking cocoa
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
120g room temperature unsalted butter
200g 70% cocoa dark chocolate, chopped
2 eggs, beaten

Missionary Style
1/4 cup white chocolate, chopped
1/4 cup milk chocolate, chopped

Mouth Party Time
2 tbs mixed peel
2 tbs toasted unsalted pistachios
50g Mayan Gold Green and Black Fairtrade Chocolate, chopped

Method

1. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees celcius. Line baking trays with non-stick paper.
2. Sift flour, baking powder and cocoa into a large bowl. Add brown sugar and mix well.
3. Place dark chocolate and butter in a saucepan. Melt over a low flame until smooth, remove from heat and set aside for fifteen minutes.
4. Once the chocolate mixture has cooled, make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour in chocolate mixture and eggs. Stir with a wooden spoon until all ingredients are combined and dough is smooth.
5. Divide mixture in half. Add chopped milk and white chocolate to one half and stir well. Repeat with peel, pistachios, and Mayan Gold with second half.
6. Roll dough into small balls of approx 3cm radius. Place balls on trays, leaving five centimetre gaps between them. Squish balls with a fork. OH HAR!
7. Place trays in oven, bake for ten minutes, switch trays around, bake for another ten minutes. Remove trays from oven, allow cookies to cool on tray for five minutes then transfer to racks. RACKS! OH LE ENTENDRE!
8. Is lucky. Are you getting lucky? No? Try these cookies as bribes.

Apricot, Honey and Pistachio Tea Cakes

Yet another post driven by frugality, or lack thereof. The Bloke and I have recently returned from the Wildes of Vietnam and Cambodia, and have also recently started shopping at ALDI. You may make the connection between these two occurrences and say "HI, I DO SAY JEEVES, IT APPEARS THAT MRS M'S ESTATE IS IN THE POORHOUSE!" You would, of course, be correct. But being in the poorhouse is no excuse for a lack of afternoon tea in one's life! No, indeed, baking scrumptious things at home and washing them down with a cup of Boh Cameronian tea bought overseas during more prosperous times can be just as fun as an evening spent at the Wine and Cheese Room under the GPO!

OK, I'm full of it. Being confined to the house sucks the big one. And the only reason I baked these was because I cracked open a tin of ALDI apricot halves to serve with pan roasted free range pork cutlets last night and knew full well that they'd just fester in a pile of wastefulness at the back of the fridge if I didn't do *something* with them. And as much as I dislike Kylie Kwong with the fire of a thousand suns, I do agree with her that food wastage is pretty criminal in these hard times (even though I threw out a whole tub of yoghurt and an entire pot of sour cream this morning... yeah, I'm working on it, OK?).

Having an infinite preference for savoury over sweet, I was hard pressed to figure out what to do with the offending leftovers, until I came across a picture of an apple tea cake (yes, just like Agnes Skinner in The Simpsons) and figured that both fruits start with A. Smart, me! A search on The Google came up with a couple of basic recipes which I tweaked to fit the ingredients on hand. The small sizes are more a product of leaving my springform pan in Canberra than deliberate planning. The pistachios were the first thing that came out of a lucky grab into the container labelled "Nuts, Legumes, Mexican" in my pantry.

Forgive my lack of enthusiasm. They taste good, but not as good as a bottle of 1986 hermitage and a lump of ripe blue on a cold city night. Beggars can't be choosers. Enjoy.

Apricot, Honey and Pistachio Tea Cakes

Ingredients

2 1/4 cups plain flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla extract
170g butter, softened
3 eggs
1 cup tinned apricots, drained and chopped roughly
2 tbsp raw pistachios
2 tbs honey
2 tbsp butter, extra
Method

1. Pre heat oven to 190 degrees celcius.
2. Toast pistachios in oven for fifteen minutes, remove and cool.
3. Meanwhile, dump flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon in a bowl and stir with a fork to break up any lumps. Set aside.
4. Cream softened butter in a bowl, then gradually add sugar until combined. Continue creaming until light and fluffy, then add eggs one at a time, and then the vanilla extract.
5. Gradually add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients, beating after each addition, until combined. Place batter in freezer for half an hour.
6. Meanwhile, grease 12 pan muffin tin with extra butter. Combine the chopped apricots with the honey.
7. Distribute half the batter into the bottoms of the muffin pans. Top with 2 tsp chopped apricots, then divide the remaining batter across the tops of the pans. Sprinkle with pistachios.
8. Bung it in the oven for half an hour, remove, check doneness with a skewer, shove 'em in your face at afternoon tea like the Queen's corgi scarfing down a leftover Harrod's pork pie. Remember the time you went to London and it rained UP, use this as a focus point for dissuading further overseas travel.

Mixed Dahl with Homemade Naan Bread by Curry Khor

As the neo-hippy culinary coordinator for our household, I resolved to include at least one vegan meal a week in our repertoire of recipes during the hungover apocalypse which was the post-New-Year period. We already eat vegetarian several times a week, but given the new / old evidence that the best way cut carbon is to kick meat, I figured it was an easy way to greenwash our household and make us feel better about consuming nought but Californian raspberries, Kobe wagyu beef, Stilton and Bollinger on the other nights. Oh lulz everybody. LULZ.

I used to consume a dahl made from brown lentils when I was an ACTUAL vegan (imagine that!), and while that version has its place as a winter warmer, I much prefer a mixture of pulses and vegetables during the summer months - especially given that our current abode is more of an oven than Lucas Heights. While only part of this meal is vegan (the dahl, silly) - I'm pretty sure that cooking a dough made with a good quality fresh soy milk in olive oil would be an acceptable way to veganise it completely. If anyone has a crack at doing it that way let me know.

Mixed Dahl with Homemade Naan Bread by Curry Khan

Ingredients

For the dahl
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 medium onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, diced
2 birds eye chillies, diced
2 stalks celery, finely diced
2 medium sized carrots, finely diced
1 tablespoon ground coriander
1 tablespoon ground cumin
2 teaspoons turmeric
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
1.5 litres vegetable stock
3/4 cup brown lentils
3/4 cup black (du puy) lentils
1/2 cup red lentils
1 cup water
Two cups assorted vegetables, diced (I used capsicum, zucchini, broccoli and mushroom 'coz they were what needed using up in my crisper)
Fresh coriander, chillies and various chutneys to serve (optional)

For the naan
1 1/2 cups plain flour, plus extra for dusting
2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup milk
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
Butter to cook
Nigella seeds, to taste

Method

Make the naan dough first - you can let it rise while the dahl is cooking and shape and cook them after adding the vegetables to the lentils.

Naan
1. Chuck the flour, salt, sugar and baking powder in a bowl. Stir vigorously with a fork to kill any lumps. Combine milk and oil in a pouring jug.
2. Add milk and oil mixture to flour mixture a little at a time, stirring to combine after each addition. When the bowl contents reach a dough-like consistency, turn it out onto a floured bench and knead until it is smooth and bounces back when you poke it.
3. Oil the same bowl you used for mixing then dump the ball of dough back into it and allow to rise in a warm area until doubled in size (1 1/2 - 2 hours).
4. When the dahl is cooked, punch the dough down then divide into four, and shape into 20cm rounds.
5. Melt a knob of butter in a large non-stick frypan over a medium/high heat, then throw in one of the rounds. Allow to cook until puffy and golden, then flip , sprinkle with nigella seeds and cook for another minute or two. Remove and repeat with remaining rounds.

Dahl
1. Chuck a slug of olive oil into a mid-sized saucepan over a medium flame. Add the onion, celery and carrot, and cook for a couple of minutes until they begin to soften.
2. Add spices, garlic, ginger and chilli to the pot, stir until fragrant then drop the heat and pour in the vegetable stock.
3. Bring to the boil, then add brown and black lentils, stir and reduce heat to a simmer. Allow to cook for 45 minutes or so (until the lentils are al dente), stirring occasionally.
4. Add the red lentils and the water, stir, and allow to simmer for another twenty minutes.
5. Add vegetables, stir and simmer until tender.

Serve in big bowls with freshly chopped coriander, chillies and chutneys on side, pretend like you're part of the solution rather than part of the problem.