An apology

It’s been ages I have written anything here. I feel so guilty about it. I have been very busy for last couple of months and didn’t have the motivation or energy to write something. Lots of changes and events happened within last few months that I hardly had any time for anything. But anyway here I am, surviving through all those tough months and now hoping for the best to happen. It’s a new beginning and I decided to come back with a double post, one sweet and the other is sour and savoury, covering the basic tastes of life (except bitter)

Chocolate cookies with chocolate glaze

Last weekend I was meeting one of my friends and her family after some time. She has a very cute little daughter who is three years old. The little girl loves people and is very friendly. I usually get to see her only on her birthdays but surprisingly she remembers me every time. I decided to bake Nigella’s chocolate cookies for this little angel. The cookies looked so adorable to me when I saw the video. I have halved (almost!) the quantity mentioned in the recipe but still got 25 cookies out of the cookie dough I made.  

Ingredients:

150gm soft butter

1/2 cup sugar

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. baking powder

Topping:

4 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 cups confectioners' sugar

1/4 cup boiling water

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Multicolour sugar sprinkles

Method:

Simply add all the ingredients except for butter in a bowl and mix well. Melt the butter and slowly add it to the dry mix. Make a soft dough out of it. You don’t need to kneed the dough a lot jut mix everything well and it’s ready. Now make small walnut size balls out of the dough and place them on an oven tray covered with grease proof baking sheet. Keep some distance between them as they will expand and take the shape of a cookie as the bake in the oven. Bake them at 170 degree C for 15-20 minutes. The top of the cookies will look a bit cracked but that’s fine as you will be topping that with chocolate glaze. Let the cookies cool down for some time. Meanwhile make the chocolate glaze. On medium heat in a saucepan add all the ingredients for the topping except for the sugar sprinkle and give it a good stir. you will end up with a shine chocolate glaze. Remove from heat and now pour a small spoon-full of chocolate glaze on top of each cookie and then sprinkle the multicolour sugar sprinkles on top of it. Leave it to set for some time and then once set place them in an air tight jar and store them.     

Jumbo Chilly Dip

In her own words a “Guilty pleasure”. Another delicious recipe from Nigella’s collection. It was Friday evening, beginning of a weekend, elaborate cooking was definitely not in my mind. Only thing in my mind was to sit back, relax and enjoy some movies with some tortilla chips and a glass of wine. All I needed a nice dip to go with it.

Ingredients:

1 can of roasted red pepper

1 clove of garlic

1 bunch of fresh coriander leaves with stocks

3 green chillies (with seeds)

Jest and juice of one lemon

salt

100 ml oil (plain groundnut oil, nothing fancy)

couple of mint leaves for garnish (optional)

Method:

In a blender put everything together except the garnish and blend them till it forms a smooth paste. That’s it! Serve with tortilla chips and enjoy with your choice of drink. Although Nigella’s suggestion was to  serve it with Americano cocktail (The original James Bond drink!). We just had it with some Pinot Noir.