Anytime Treat: Mocha Chip Shortbread Cookies

Dieting means I have sworn off a lot of food items, including sweets. Not an easy task when you have a sweet tooth like me. But I recently needed to check out some recipes to serve at Brilliant Daughter’s big birthday celebration. I found a base recipe (which I adjusted to suit my own tastes) for a cookie that combines 3 things we love: shortbread (we are of British descent after all), coffee, and chocolate. How could I go wrong?

While I am a committed Peet’s coffee drinker, one of my recipe modifications makes use of Starbuck’s instant Via coffee packets. We received some as a gift and every time I open the coffee cabinet I wonder what I will do with them. No longer, as they are the perfect ingredient for this recipe.

These shortbread cookies are rich, full of flavor and crunch and perfect with a scoop of coffee ice cream or a piping hot cappuccino (not that I can indulge, mind you). I promise that I taste-tested both batches—one with cocoa nibs and one without—and they are really, really good. I mean, addictive good. I had to package them up for the butchers, Mr. B’s co-workers, Brilliant Daughter’s co-workers, and for Electrician Son and his fiancée, otherwise my diet would have been blown to hell. Down 17 pounds, with only 8 to go, I am determined, scrumptious cookies or no….

So go ahead, give them a try. If you like a little extra crunch, add in the cocoa nibs. If not, they are perfect with the mini chocolate chips alone (Brilliant Daughter’s preference).

Mocha Chip Shortbread Cookies

3 packets Starbucks Via Columbian coffee powder

1 tablespoon boiling water
1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
2/3 cup confectioners’ sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

1/4 cup cocoa nibs (optional)

Dissolve coffee powder in boiling water to make coffee concentrate. Set aside to cool for 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, beat butter and sugar together on medium speed for 3 minutes, scraping bowl occasionally. Beat in vanilla bean paste and coffee concentrate, mixing for 1 minute. Reduce mixer speed to low and add flour, mixing just until all specks of flour are gone. Don’t overmix the dough as it will get tough. Quickly fold in the chocolate chips (and cocoa nibs).

Transfer dough to a gallon-size Ziploc or between two large sheets of waxed paper. Flatten dough with you hand as much as you can, and then use a rolling pin to roll it out to ¼-inch thickness. Try and keep it as square or rectangular as you can. You will need to periodically lift plastic or waxed paper up to remove any creases that occur. Once you reach correct thickness, seal bag or fold paper over ends and refrigerate for 2 hours or more (up to 2 days).

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Prepare cookie sheets with parchment or silpat.

Cut open plastic bag or peel off top waxed paper. Using ruler and knife (or pizza cutter), cut dough into 1 1/2–inch squares. Transfer to prepared cookie sheet and bake for 15-18 minutes, rotating trays halfway through. Cool on baking racks.

Yield: 3 dozen

The Bane of a Happy Cook

I love to cook. I love food. I love my kitchen. All three things combined make me terribly happy, particularly when preparing meals for people I care about. Digging my hands into flour, kneading dough, harvesting herbs for a stew, chopping vegetables, and frosting cupcakes all bring me joy and an amazing calm. I am probably at my best when spending long hours in the kitchen. But there is a downside….

I insist on tasting things I make, particularly if they are newer recipes or creations. I will not serve something sub-par, or if I do out of desperation I hang my head in shame while my family consoles me. But those tastes, those final products, all that wonderful glorious food seems to attach itself to unwanted places on my body. This wasn’t always the case, but age, metabolism, menopause and a slowdown in physical activity have made the area between by waist and knees a prime target for (sigh!) fat.

Much to my family’s dismay, I have drastically cut calories. They are amazed at the small amount of food I now intake. I rarely serve desserts at Sunday dinner anymore, and should I feel the need to bake, I do so and then package it up to send up to the my son’s butcher buddies, my husband’s workmates, or various family and friends. I can no longer fill my cake domes with goodies for the taking. I just cannot have it in the house, which makes me terribly sad. Everyone who visits knows where the goodies reside and an empty counter means empty tummies. I hate that others have to suffer at my expense.

So, one of the reasons I have not been posting is that I have embarked on a personal renewal program. I started by constructing a diet that would work for me, and 8 weeks later I was down almost 7 pounds. I began taking walks several times a week, mostly by  myself, but occasionally with Brilliant Daughter or Mr. B.

Two weeks ago, in an effort to ramp up the weight loss, I  consulted a doctor and began a medically supervised weight loss program. I also added yoga to my regimen and am making more of an effort to work with some light weights (to deter that unsightly upper arm flap).

I’m almost halfway to my goal and to a closet full of clothes that have not fit in some time. I am feeling lighter, stronger and better able to resist temptation. Unfortunately, my cooking creativity has gone by the wayside for the moment, but I know this is just temporary, much like the empty cake dome.

My New Obsession: Rainbow Kale Salad

Last weekend, while on a jaunt to Napa Valley, I saw a farro and kale salad on the menu. While I did not try it, the combination intrigued me, so I set about the make my own version of this healthy dish.

While perusing the produce aisle for ingredients, I found an organic rainbow kale salad (described as a variety of seasonal kales and carrots). The green, purple and orange hues were beautiful and intrigued me, not to mention that the already cleaned and chopped kale would make my job easier, so I grabbed a tub to use as the base of the salad.

Farro is a staple of my pantry, thanks to Giada DeLaurentis, who makes a farro salad with course pesto that is scrumptious. Farro is a variety of wheat that originated in the Haute-Savoie region of France, and is also used in Italian cooking. It has become popular enough that it is now stocked in most of our local grocery stores.

Then I just got creative, letting my palate guide me. I decided to roast the kale salad to get a good crisp on it, mixing it with a bit of olive oil and truffle salt. I just boiled the farro in broth, and poached a few chicken breasts for added protein. Tossed with some additional olive oil, some fresh lemon juice and zest, with a good measure of both parmesan cheese and fresh ground pepper, and we had a healthy one-bowl meal, with plenty left over for lunches.  (A vegetarian version can be made by replacing chicken broth with vegetable broth and omitting the chicken. Vegans can omit cheese.)

A week later, I made a slightly different version, adding a half a slivered onion and a few chopped mushrooms to the kale roast, tossed in some leftover grilled chicken, and topped it all with a miso dressing.  Again, a winning combination.

I’m thinking there are endless variations to this kale salad, both cooked and uncooked. What would you do with it?

Kale-Farro Salad

2 cups chicken broth

1 cup water

1 cup farro

pinch salt

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

8-ounce bag/clamshell rainbow kale salad

2 tablespoons olive oil

½ teaspoon truffle salt

1/8 cup olive oil

1/3 cup lemon juice

zest of 1 lemon

1 cup shredded Parmesan cheese

salt and freshly ground pepper

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Bring broth, water, and a pinch of salt to boil in medium saucepan, add farro and stir. Cover slightly and cook for 22-25 minutes stirring occasionally, until liquid is almost completely evaporated.

Meanwhile, poach 2 chicken breasts in water. Depending upon size of breasts, this should take 20-25 minutes.

Place kale salad in roasting pan, toss with 2 tablespoons olive oil and sprinkle with truffle salt. Roast in oven for 20-25 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes, until you’ve got some of the kale nicely browned.

Shred or chop chicken and add to farro. Add in roasted kale salad, 1/8 cup olive oil, lemon juice and zest, and parmesan cheese. Toss well. Season with salt and fresh ground pepper, to taste.

Serve immediately for a warm salad or refrigerate for an hour or more and serve cold.

Eating Suburbia Cookbook Now Available!

You heard it right, there is a new cookbook by Mrs. B…and Brilliant Daughter. A loving collaboration between the two of us for friends and family, we’ve been able to make it available to the public on Amazon.

Named after this blog, Eating Suburbia is a follow-up to Eat · Drink · Merry, a cookbook that debuted in 2010. That first book—a compilation of family favorites—was a product of this blog and our love of food. Three years and hundreds of recipes later, this second book is following in those footsteps.

I had a blast working with Brilliant Daughter on recipe testing, formatting, design. And for those of you who have eaten in our home, you should easily figure out the impetus behind the cover design. This time around we made the cover very personal (and probably less commercial), paying homage to the 4x6’ chalkboard that hung in our kitchen for almost 15 years. Our “communications center,” this utilitarian wall décor served us well, keeping track of shopping lists, phone messages, chore duty, family contact information, and, during holidays, became an oversized greeting card for our guests. And although it was retired when we remodeled, the fond memories linger and became the inspiration.

The effort behind these cookbooks is to encourage cooks to break out of a cooking rut and spice up the kitchen with fresh ingredients and some foreign flavors. As I’ve said before, I believe that the world might be a better place if the canned veggies, packaged cookies, and oversweet jams were left on the shelves, and we spent a little time digging into the garden and flour bag and treating our families and ourselves to something better.

By sharing, we hope that someone will take the next step in the kitchen by trying to make mujadara, Guinness bread, a spicy tuna roll, or the perfect pecan pie, and know that it doesn’t have to be complicated and that the end result speaks for itself.

This book is comprised of eight sections: Breakfast, Appetizers, Lunch, Dinner, Sides, Quick & Easy, Desserts, and Odds & Ends. Sidebars contain tips on shortcuts, cooking ingredients and sources. There is a bonus section in the back that contains the 10 most treasured recipes from our first cookbook, Eat · Drink · Merry.

All recipes were tested in our suburban kitchens, without any fancy equipment (unless a candy thermometer and Kitchen Aid mixer count as fancy). All ingredients are easily sourced and the majority of the recipes take less than one hour. So what are you waiting for? Take a chance, make a change—your stomach will thank you for it.

To order Eating Suburbia, head on over to Amazon here.

If you don’t have our first book, it’s still available on Lulu here.

Thumbprint Cookies with a Twist

We are a household who will eat pretty much anything and we have few food allergies or intolerances, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t try and please those who are vegetarian, vegan, or gluten-free. We know quite a few people who prescribe to those diets and I think food should be just as tasty for them as it is the rest of the world.

For some time I have been hunting for a decent vegan cookie. One that I myself would eat and that wouldn’t take ingredients not already in my pantry. I finally found upon a recipe, that I modified slightly and am proud to blog about.

These thumbprint cookies use almond meal instead of flour. (Almond meal, as well as coconut oil, is available at Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods.) The almond meal holds up well and provides for a sweetness that negates the use of traditional sweeteners. The small amount of maple syrup is just the right touch. Best of all, these are vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free and dairy-free!

Recipe on Page 2

Full Circle: A Thai Cooking Lesson

Many (many) moons ago, I worked on the very first book that Travelers’ Tales ever published, a travel anthology on Thailand. And while I’ve worked on over 100 books since that time, it remains my favorite. It was the first book to take me to a faraway exotic locale in a magical way that only really good writing can accomplish.

To celebrate the publication of that first book, and many more to come, I learned to cook Thai food. Inspired by a story by Kemp Miles Minifie about the cooking school at the famed Bangkok Oriental hotel, I went out and bought a wonderful cookbook by Vatcharin Bhumichitr and taught myself about galangal and nam pla, red and green curry, long beans and satay. This was back in 1992, before Thai food became mainstream, so I had nothing to compare it to.

Ten years later, the publishers wanted to update the book, and I found myself on a plane going halfway across the world to replicated Kemp’s experience. For ten days, my friend Jen Leo and I ate our way through Thailand. First at the Bangkok Oriental, where we had some supreme digs and I had 3 days of intensive cooking classes. (We floated on the Chao Phraya, wandered the streets, and had the opportunity to eat thai food at both street carts and fancy restaurants.) Then we went south to Phuket, to Mom Tri’s Boathouse, where we lounged on the beach, went sea kayaking, visited Koh Phi Phi (don’t you love these names?) and had another 2 days of cooking classes. I came away fat and happy.

Since that time, Thai cooking has been a part of my repertoire. And recently I had to privilege of sharing that with a friend. Jan retired two years ago, and as a gift I offered her a cooking lesson. Yes, she is of retirement age, and yes she can cook, but I was thinking of a fun activity we could share and bringing something new into her kitchen. So this week, we set to work and I was the teacher instead of the student.

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