Dark Chocolate and Macadamia Cookies and Meatball Stew

So I've been wanting to make this dark chocolate and macadamia cookie recipe for months now. I saw it many moons ago in some woman's magazine like Woman's Weekly or something. We get these magazines all the time at my workplace and we normally get given them by patients once they are done with them. The only issue is that when it comes to recipes, they normally go missing.

This is because some scum bags at work like to rip out the recipe instead of photocopying it or taking a photo like a civilised human being. You hardly deserve to be called ladies, and I hope that the recipe was fantastic and you fail badly at it. I always feel so annoyed when I see the recipes have been ripped out because it means it must've been good enough, and by the low standards of my workplace, easy enough for someone to pull off and still look good.

Dark Chocolate and Macademia Cookies

Super delicious

Uses: bribing house mates, study rewards, nurse fodder.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup of sifted cocoa

1/2 cup of brown sugar

1/2 cup of white sugar

250g of cubed butter

1 beaten egg

1/2 cup and 1/2 cup of sifted SR flour and plain flour. Or use 1 cup plain and a tbsp of baking powder

1 cup of halved roasted macademias

150g of good dark chocolate or cooking chocolate

Seems like a lot of ingredients, but its not!

Note:

I didn't use milk in this recipe at all. I thought I was going to but decided on a mostly shortbread style biscuit, which doesn't require any milk. I'm never a fan of using plain flour and baking powder, so I normally use weird ratios of SR and plain flour.

Instructions:

1. Preheat an oven to 180C while you are doing all this. Line several baking trays with baking paper

2. Whiz together the sifted cocoa, sugars and butter together until creamy brown paste is formed.

Simple!

3. Scrape out the mixture and mix in the beaten egg

4. Begin sifting the flour onto the mixture, don't be shy, tap it.

There is an egg somewhere under that

5. Mix briefly until no white parts remain, but don't overmix or it gets weird and starchy.

Nice and smooth

6. Mix in the macademias and dark chocolate. Don't overmix, just mix until just combined

Good enough

7. Space far away from each other, a small 50c piece sized ball of dough, flatten slightly and continue. Or do it however you want, its a cookie, its going to get eaten not admired

This will not end well. They turned into a flower, see the top image :)

8. Bake for 10-15 minutes to desired consistency. They will firm up once cooled down, but will be very crumbly until then. 

On the day that we made this, my Boyfriend's housemates were cat calling us all evening, trying to score some cookies. We left the plate out overnight and he said in the morning there was a hand written sign saying, "OMG I ALMOST HAD ONE, SO TEMPTING." He promptly printed out a sign of this:

Her response was: OMG BEST RESPONSE EVER. Then when we left the house half the plate went missing haha.

As usual, I made a savoury dish but this time it was as more of an afterthought since I really wanted to make the cookies first and foremost. This is just a basic meatball stew/soup recipe cobbled together that I normally make for lunches in winter. Change/adapt to whatever is in your kitchen but here is my basic recipe. Its not the fanciest thing in the world, but its cheap, filling and smells delicious, and nearly everyone has this stuff in their pantry.

Meatball Soup

Uses: warm belly lunches. Making salad eating nurses jealous.

Meatball recipe:

Ingredients:

500kg beef/chicken/pork/veal mince

1 small onion, diced
2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
1/4 cup of tasty cheese
1 large egg, beaten
Salt and pepper to taste

All the ingredients in one!

1. Mix all this stuff together

Before

After

2. Make small 50c piece sized balls or whatever shape you want. Squeeze them hard like you're strangling your worst enemy

Nice. Also a wild hairy foot is spotted!

3. Put in the fridge for at least 15 minutes so they hold their shape,
4. Briefly fry them in hot oil until golden brown edged

Mmm meatballs. Ignore burnt bits, they will add flavour to your soup!

5. Set aside and begin making soup

Soup recipe:
1 large onion, sliced/diced
2-3 cloves of garlic, minced

2x 500g cans of diced tomato

1x 500g can of 4 bean mix

2x carrots, sliced
1 large potato, scrubbed, diced
1 small capsicum, diced
1tbsp Tomato paste
500ml-1L of chicken stock
1tbsp mixed herbs
Salt/Pepper/Brown Sugar/Balsamic Vinegar to taste

Ingredients:

1. Brown off the onion on a medium heat until slightly browned

2. Throw in your garlic and stir until you can smell cooked garlic

3. Throw in everything hard, like potatoes, carrots, all your canned goods and all your stock. Bring to the boil. Hard herbs go in now as well.

Classy.

Overcrowding ftw

4. Remember to skim off scum. Reduce to a simmer until the potato begins to soften, throw in meatballs and softer vegetables such as mushrooms, capsicum and friends

SKIM SKIM

5. This is the time for seasoning with salt, pepper, sugar, balsamic vinegar and soft herbs if wanted.

Lastly, here is a picture of the first blog related injury sustained in the kitchen.

Poor darling.

What happened? Well the can opener I picked out was apparently one of the two dodgy ones in my Boyfriend's share house and it doesn't maintain equal pressure when being used. So I had to keep repuncturing the can. Once I failed to open it, I called in my Boyfriend and he got out his actual can opener which works, and did another go around the can, which resulted in this razor sharp second ring on the can. He then pried out the fallen in ring and flicked it up against his thumb quite deeply. Thanks for taking one for the team darling :)

Marinated beef salad and Peanut Butter Choc Chip Cookies

Marinated beef is my go to recipe and crowd pleaser whenever I have dinner night. Its easy to prepare in advance, its fun to cook in a wok for large amounts of people and being the wok master is always fantastic. This beef recipe is easily adapted to whatever proportions you want, and whatever marinade inclusions you want. Maybe not so much a recipe but a guide line?

This recipe can also be used for rice paper rolls. This time I served it with vermicelli noodles and a salad selection. 

My mother's favourite brand of vermicelli noodles. They come in a packet of eight, and come out in little squares, perfect for one meal. Literally heat water to boiling, shove in noodles and cook until just before al dente. Drain and put somewhere safe. Be careful cause these suckers love water and to get grossly soggy.

My salad plate. Grated carrots. Blanched bean sprouts. Weirdly cut up cucumber and shredded lettuce. ONTO THE RECIPES.

Marinated beef. Shake for deliciousness.

Ingredients: 

Thinly sliced beef. 400g of beef is enough for six servings.1kg is plenty to feed about 6-10 people for one round. I normally use cheapo meat like topside, you could use any type of steak, if you can afford it, whatever you feel like. The marinade makes even topside taste good.

Lemongrass - minced at least the white part of two white stalks.

Garlic cloves - minced at least two cloves

Onions - white/brown/purple, at least one solid medium

Lime juice - at least half a lime squeezed in

Oyster sauce - two-three tablespoons, I lie I just chuck it over until the bowl is covered in a spiral of oyster sauce, usually enough to cover the top as you can see in the instruction picture

Soy sauce - see above

Sesame oil - see two above

Sweet soy sauce - see three above

Cooking oil - two tablespoons to make the meat shiny is what my mother says.

Chilli - one hot chilli. Or chilli flakes if you want. Dried chilli could do I suppose

Pepper - black or white, just a wee bit.

My best friends. Also sinister empty orange juice

Instructions:

Mix it all together. Massage with hands. Alternatively put it in a box, and shake it like a polaroid picture. Shove in the fridge for at least half an hour before you eat. I normally do it 4-5 hours in advance. Stir the mixture as you please for extra flavour. Cook in at butter or oil for as long as it takes for all the meat to turn brown or when the onions begin to soften, at that thiness it will take less than a minute. Reoil the pan as required and scrap off burn bits as needed.

MIX.

Notes:

- For an easy time with the beef, either get your butcher to slice it into ham thin slices or freeze it up to an hour beforehand for an easy time. Soft beef is murder to slice since it slides everywhere. Also tiny slivers of beef tend to burn in the pan when cooking cause you can't pick them up.

 - you can use like stirfry beef if you want, but it tends to be too thick for this recipe. Freeze and maybe use a mandolin to slice it thinner?

- This is not a particularly saucy marinade, its mostly coating the meat. If desired, double, triple quantities for the marinade as wanted. Its not a great idea cause the sauce burns and sticks like crazy on pans if not dealt with quickly

- You can mix and match whatever ingredients you want really. The basic tennants are something sour for tenderness, something sweet for balance and caramelisation, something salty for deliciousness, something that smells good whilst cooking to entice. In this recipe, sour = lime juice, sweet = sweet soy sauce, saltiness = soy sauce+oyster sauce, smells good = lemongrass, onions, garlic and chilli. 

 - alternatives to some of these flavours can include

 - sour, lemon juice, orange juice, vinegar, pineapple juice

 - sweet, honey, sugar, condensed milk, peanut butter. The more you put in the more likely it is to burn though. 

- saltiness - salt? Hoisin sauce, satay sauce. Iunno, premade sauces too I guess.

- smells good - ginger, galangal, cumin, lemongrass, onions

- spice, curry powder, paprika, cayenne pepper, chilli flakes, sambal, harissa

 - Always fry off a bit of the meat before officially serving as you can then balance the flavours as needed.

The finished product

Probably my signature cookie, its never gone wrong but it might now that I've said that since I'm typing this post in advance. Originally stolen from this site, not much was changed from the original recipe cause its a pretty fantastic recipe. I'm just rehashing the recipe with a few tips that everyone should know.

A batch from earlier this year.

Use: 
Bribing nurses for favours. Pick me up on sad days. Fantastic fodder for cookie cutters since the peanut butter really helps hold the shape. Burnt ones can be smashed into vanilla ice cream for utter deliciousness

Ingredients:
1/2 cup softened butter
3/4 cup of sugar
1 egg
1 splash of vanilla essence
3/4 cup crunchy peanut butter
1 cup plain flour
1-2 teaspoons of baking powder
3/4-1 cup chocolate chips

Various junk you need:
2x baking trays
Cooling rack or a cool wire rack
Large mixing bowl
Wooden spoons

Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 175C, if you oven overheats a steady 150C is fine too
2. Line your baking trays with baking paper
3. Mix butter and sugars until creamy.

MIX DAMN YOU MIX

4. Mix in your egg, vanilla, flour and peanut butter until a smooth paste is formed
5. Shove in your choc chips, don't overmix or bad things will happen

Cheap arse choc chip bits

6. Keep wide space on all sides when laying out these bad boys cause they have a tendency to hostilely invade each others territory. That different combo of flour seemed to slow down the rate of expansion while still making a nicely fluffy cookie :)

7. 10-12 minutes in if you like em soft. 12-14 if a bit chewier. This is your average when your oven is right, if going at a lower heat, go for a few minutes longer.
8. Shove them on a wire cooling rack and for gods sake wait until cool to eat, they crumble like sand, but show surprising resiliency post cooling down

I couldn't find my wire cooling rack so I ended up using first a pasta colander as seen on the upper left and then the ingenious idea of using one of my oven racks turned upside down. Please take pity on me and buy me a baking tray or a wire cooling rack.