hand-break pie (and pasta)

I've been extremely low energy of late, as my body furiously attempts to heal my fractured wrist. With the gracefulness of an elephant a couple of weeks ago, I was tripped up by a defender on the indoor netball court in the dying minutes of Net Minute taking victory. Initially unconvinced I'd broken a bone, the x-ray the next morning proved otherwise.

It's my first broken bone ever and it has stopped me in my tracks. The novelty wore off after a few hours, and I very quickly learnt just how useful a fully functioning right hand is. I'm trying not to whinge too much, but failing pretty well. After two plaster casts, then two pink fibre glass casts - one too loose and one too tight, I've gone fifth time lucky with basic black for the next few weeks. Needless to say cooking one-handed is pretty difficult, and when a couple of friends came over for dinner the other night I was lucky to not lose a finger slicing onions, and they were lucky a hot meal landed on the table. After having cast number five applied my cooking energy levels were low, but with a little bit of assistance we managed a damn tasty pasta filled feast.

Tomato, bacon and red wine Fettucine

I totally cheated. After circling Nosh trying desperately to think of something I could cook, I ended up buying a pasta mia pre made tomato, bacon and red wine sauce, which I supercharged with some Freedom Farms streaky bacon (difficult to cut left handed, fyi) some Mutti Passata, some chilli flakes, and a sliced red onion. Served with fettucine, grana padano cheese and a hastily dressed rocket salad it was the perfect Wednesday night cheats Italian dinner.

If you didn't want to cheat, you could start with the onion and bacon, add some passata or just a couple of tins of tomatoes, a bit of garlic, a generous splash of red wine, some chilli flakes, and you'd be away laughing. An easy, comforting tasty winter dinner. Nothing like a steaming pile of pasta and friend's arguing over the meaning of irony to make yourself feel better.

happiness and cookies

A couple of weeks out of the blogosphere and what has happened? I spent the weekend preaching how messed up it is that the majority of us look in the mirror and go 'gross' instead of 'lovely' after a few wines, as well as generally ranting about my hatred of pokie machines and my love of feminism. I also continued an argument with a friend of mine about who is funnier (answer: Me). A crew of us stood in the sunshine at the Mount with a banner, cheering on the amazing Harriet as she completed her first (and only!) half marathon. We ate roast cauliflower salad and played the headbands game and had ice creams on the beach.

As well as the above, there have been many moments lately where I'll look around and think, goddam I am lucky to have such beautiful and talented people in my life. Friends from uni, friends from jobs, friends from flats and the girls with whom I bonded over a mutual hatred of law school. There was the usual life crises dissection, there was dancing to Beyonce, and there was chocolate. 

Of all the food blogs out there (and goddam, there are literally millions) Joy the Baker is one I really read religiously for a while, and one that I still go back to often for general inspirational purposes. Joy's twitter bio explains that no matter what the question, the answer is always cookies. Always. What should I do with my life? COOKIES. What should I bake for the boy I fancy? COOKIES. Should I press send? COOKIES. What should I write about next? COOKIES COOKIES COOKIES.

And who am I to argue with that? Which leads me to my other favourite food blog, the Kitchen Maid. Lucy also writes for Frankie, and for stuff, and her twitter bio explains how she is always in the kitchen at parties (oh how I can relate). She is currently hosting a monthly blogger event thingee called We Should Cocoa, which was started by Choclette and Chele.

When I read that the guest ingredient for June was coffee, I thought it would be just the thing to get me back in the game. I also knew of just the recipe: Joy the Baker's dark chocolate cookies. These were my go-to for a while a few years back, and my then flatmate Sharyn declared these cookies true love. They are easy, they are adaptable and boy, they are good.      

I probably just scrape through with these containing but 1 teaspoon of espresso powder, however I encourage you to get creative with your filling - I think coffee beans would totally be a goer. Herewith my entry for June's We Should Cocoa.

Dark chocolate cookies 
Joy's original recipe is dark chocolate, walnut and golden raisin. I've adapted these ones to be white chocolate and macadamia.

225g good quality dark chocolate, chopped (Whittaker's Dark Ghana for me, always)
3 Tablespoons (1 1/2 ounces) butter
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon espresso powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup chocolate chips (for this I chopped up a block of Whittaker's white into chunks)


Then, go crazy with your fillings. Joy says 1 cup of chopped walnuts (fresh NZ ones would be great) and 3/4 cup golden raisins. I've made fruit and nut ones before, with a mix of nuts and dried fruit. A cup of chopped macadamias goes in here like a dream. 


Gently melt the butter and chocolate together - you can use a double boiler, or a microwave, but I usually do it very gently on a stove top until the butter has melted, then remove from heat and stir until the chocolate has melted in too. 


In a separate bowl, beat together with a wooden spoon the sugar and eggs until well combined. Add the melted chocolate mixture (so satisfying!) and the remaining ingredients. Then stir through whatever fillings you're using. 


Preheat oven to 163C (325F). Lightly grease an oven tray. 


Drop tablespoonfuls of cookie mixture onto the tray, leaving space for them to spread as they bake. Bake for 11-12 minutes until the tops are shiny and cracked - they'll crack like brownies and be chewy and soft on the inside. Don't overcook! Remove from oven, then wait 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool. You'll probably want to rip into them immediately though. They're rich, but they're great and a hot chocolatey cookie out of the oven is pretty hard to beat, and burning ones fingers on burny melted chocolate is totally worth it.