Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies: SRC

It's that time of the month again - SECRET RECIPE CLUB time - an initiative taken by Amanda from www.amandascookin.com! Sally's blog www.bewitchingkitchen.com has so many wonderful recipes - especially Bread & Brazilian ones - that it was a very tough choice for me to make. She seems to be a domestic goddess at bread making and I just can't do it. So I tried a no knead Foccacia (great, easy recipe) but I made it with regular flour and it turned out hard as rock. I decided bread making was just not for me.

Then at my son's insistence I ended up making her brown butter chocolate chip cookies that were simply delicious and a perfect snack to make my toddler smile when sneaked into his snack-box.

The week has been rather crazy with my boy and me trying to juggle the 40 minute commute to school one way  , I have been under the weather, the weekend was packed with errands so it was a great achievement for me to have the pictures, food and post ready yesterday!

But there had to be a catch! As my husband once told me I am the queen of last minute and can never get things done before time. Once I had to deliver an order and baked the cakes in advance leaving them on my dining table for cooling. My help moved them to the kitchen to cool and there were ants crawling over them when I got back home from running my errands and thinking all I had to do was frost them.

So, my toddler and I usually leave the house at 730am for school and I stay at my MIL's till noonish (who's house is 10 mins away from his school), which is when I head back to his school to pick him up. We come back eat lunch, play for bit and head back on our 40 minute commute. So today morning I was all packed and ready to leave - with all his things and my new SONY (http://www.sony.co.in/product/dsc-hx100v) to add the pics to my blog post and when I reached my MIL's I realized I hadn't got the cord to transfer the pictures to the laptop! You should definitely see the pictures when the post goes up but if you don't you'd know what happened!

Phew, so check out the recipe, tweaked a bit with ingredients I had on hand, and please check back for the pictures :)!

Ingredients

100 grams butter (heated to give it a tan color and cooled)
1 cup brown sugar (could have reduced to 3/4 cup)
1 cup chocolate chip cookies
11/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/2  cup oats
1 egg

Recipe


Cream the cooled butter and sugar together. Add a egg and whip well. Add flour and baking soda and mix with a spatula till dough like. Add chocolate chips and mix well. I made about ten cookies with this (yes I have a tiny oven) and found them a bit sweet. So to the remaining mixture I added 1/2 cup of quick cooking oats or even 1/2 cup roughly chopped toasted almonds would have worked and baked the rest of the cookies with this dough.

Both turned out yum according to the husband and the baby - that had fun dunking them in milk and eating them.

An hour and half to go and I got my pics ready...

(ONE BOWL) LINDT Peanut Butter Brownies & A simple summer salad

There are a few blogs that I just cannot get enough of... Joy the Baker, SmittenKitchen, Passionate About Baking... I try to read through them on at least a weekly basis and then potter around my kitchen to try and cook something to the best of my ability. Last week I tried a no knead Foccacia and it came out hard as rock... though I added the yeast, let it rise etc etc But life is all about inspiration and experimentation!

Not to get deterred I continue in my endeavors to get you simple tried and tested recipes that can be put together quickly. I know what mothers really want is that extra half hour to catch a nap yet not neglect their kids, all they want is another 20 mins weekly for a mani-pedi yet they want wholesome food on the table for their family, they want their girly night outs if they manage to arrange a great baby sitter but still feel guilty and keep checking their wrist for the time.. you get the drift.

In my 20's life was simple, Friday nights were usually spent checking out a latest pub on the scene, weekend champagne brunches or poolside parties are a thing of the past. At 30 we are usually seen with diaper bags in tow, kid friendly restaurants and socializing with families who have kids are our toddlers age is the new party scene! Most weekends I need to sleep in but am woken by my very energetic toddler at 6am... by the end of Sunday I am ready to give a time-out to anyone in sight.

When I read Deeba's post about one bowl brownies I was delighted! My 3 year old has been wanting me to bake something so he carry it in his lunch box to school. He started big boy school two weeks back and needs to be bribed to even get out of bed on a school day...

The one bowl brownies is great with the weather being super hot and me not wanting to stand anywhere near a hot oven or in the kitchen! I also had a bag of LINDT truffles from my SIL = perfect! They have a peanut butter flavor truffle that I know no-one wanted to try, so I subbed it for the chocolate mentioned in the recipe... and they were as decadent and fudgy as Deeba promised.

Do give it a try - it actually took only 40 minutes from start to finish as her recipe mentions!

Just to make myself feel better about indulging in the brownies I made a simple, fresh salad to go along with it. After missing gym for 10 days straight I couldn't afford a calorie laden meal. Put together with ingredients in my fridge it can be very easily adapted to your tastes and put together in a couple of minutes! I made it with broken wheat but it can be made with couscous or farro!

So here are the recipes...

One Bowl Brownies (recipe adapted from Passionate About Baking)
Ingredients
12 Lindt Peanut Butter Truffles + 50 grams of any milk chocolate
2 eggs
100 grams butter
40 ml oil
9 tablespoons all purpose flour
7-8 tablespoons granulated sugar

Recipe
Preheat oven to 200C. Melt the butter and chocolate together in the microwave. Wait for it to cool a bit. Add the oil and whisk. Add the two eggs and whisk. Add the sugar and whisk. Add the flour and fold it all together.

Put in a square baking tin for 25-30 mins at 180C. Leave to cool and cut into squares and serve!


Simple Summer Salad


Ingredients
1/2 cup broken wheat put in boiling water and cooked as per instructions
1 onion thinly sliced
1 tomato thinly sliced
1 red pepper roasted
Seasoning - paprika, salt, pepper, lemon juice, olive oil
1 fried egg

Recipe
Cook the broken wheat, couscous or farro and put in the fridge to cool.

Caramelize the onions with a little bit of olive oil and sugar. Remove from pan. Saute tomatoes in pan and remove. Roast pepper on gas or in oven, remove skin and thinly slice 9 I would have used a green pepper for contrast but didn't have any). Also some parsley would have been lovely but I was all out of it!!!!

Fry the egg so that the yellow is uncooked. For the dressing, shake a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, juice of 1 lemon, paprika, salt, pepper and Italian herbs in a bottle.

Get your broken wheat out and add the vegetables and toss with dressing. Add the fried egg to the top or on the side or leave it out if you're not a fan... and your beautiful summer salad is ready but I did miss my parsley a lot.