Having people over for dinner parties is one of the chief joys of my life. I love everything about it: planning the menu, shopping for ingredients, "slaving" over the stove. I. Love. It. Lucky for me, Caliban and I have lots of willing dining companions to call on. Last week, I invited my best friend D over for an early Christmas dinner - and it was a triumph of epic culinary proportions. Truly!
D isn't big on vegetarians ("It's not a meal without meat," is practically a trademarked D-ism), so I knew she wouldn't be happy with a pescetarian meal, especially when it was meant for a Christmas celebration. I decided to make D and I roast pork loin, and made stuffed squid for Caliban.
The menu
Entree
Cold rocket and cucumber soup
Main
Roast pork loin with mango
Squid stuffed with Mediterranean couscous
Roast tomatoes with pesto
Best ever roast potatoes
Dessert
White chocolate pannacotta with drunken berries
The soup and pannacotta are Gourmet Traveller and Australian Women's Weekly recipes, respectively, so I won't repeat them here. I will say, though, that the pannacotta was sinfully easy to make. I was terrified that the pannacotta wouldn't slip from the moulds easily, but it did and I am now considered a Michelin-star-style chef by D and Caliban. Good stuff.
Here are the recipes for the rest of the dinner, which went off like a pimply kid at Schoolies.
Roast pork loin with mango
Ingredients
500 gm pork loin (more or less, depending on guests - this served D and I with lots left over, just the way I like it)
Asian marinade (I used Asian Fusion from The Royal Botanical Gardens in Melbourne, which is basically a mix of soy sauce, brown sugar, fish sauce, lime juice, sesame oil, ginger, garlic and coriander - easy enough to make at home)
1 ripe mango
1 cup fresh mint, chopped
Method
1. Baste pork generously with Asian marinade. Cover and refrigerate for at least three hours, preferably overnight.
2. Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celcius. Place pork in oven and roast for 1.5 hours.
3. Dice mango and mix with mint. Serve with pork.
Squid stuffed with Mediterranean couscous
Ingredients
Squid tubes (as many as you need: 1 per guest is adequate)
1/2 cup white wine
1/2 cup couscous (for each tube)
Tablespoon oil
Tablespoon butter
1/4 cup chopped fetta
1/4 cup fresh coriander, chopped
1/4 cup sundried tomatoes
Method
1. Place 1/2 cup water and tablespoon of oil in saucepan. Bring to the boil and remove from heat. Add couscous and cover for three minutes.
2. Remove lid from couscous and add butter. Stir through with fork, separating the grains. Add fetta, tomatoes and coriander and mix through thoroughly.
3. Open squid tube and fill with couscous until the tube is about three-quarters full. Use a toothpick to seal the end.
4. Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celcius. Place squid in oven for 1 hour, basting every fifteen minutes or so with the white wine. (Use more if necessary, depending on size of squid tube).
5. Serve, eat, enjoy!
Roast tomatoes with pesto
Ingredients
Six good quality tomatoes (or two for each guest)
2 bunches fresh basil, chopped roughly
1 cup good quality parmesan
1/2 cup roasted pine nuts
1 cup good quality olive oil
Method
1. Slice the tops of the tomatoes off (about a centimetre) and scoop out the flesh. Place tomatoes upside down on paper towel and leave to drain (about 15 minutes).
2. Place basil, parmesan and pine nuts in a food processor or blender. Add olive oil gradually, and process until smooth.
3. Scoop pesto into tomatoes, filling to about a centimetre away from the top.
4. When ready to serve, place in oven at 200 degrees Celcius, and roast for 10 minutes.
Best ever roast potatoes
Ingredients
9 potatoes (or three for each guest)
Sea salt
1/2 cup olive oil
Method
1. Boil potatoes in water for ten minutes.
2. Chop in half and place in roasting pan.
3. Pour olive oil over potatoes (more or less than I've recommended, depending on your love for olive oil/size of potatoes/propensity for heart attacks) and sprinkle with sea salt.
4. Roast in 200 degree oven for 1.5 hours. Drool.
Friday, December 18
Thursday, December 17
plan b by becasse
Last week, I blogged at Cosmo about wanting a wagyu beef burger from Plan B by Becasse for Christmas. Today, I got my wish!
Miss C and I went to Plan B for lunch today. I was nursing a nasty hangover and she was nursing a bottle of champers for me for Christmas – how apt! We both ordered the 800-day grain fed wagyu beef burger, and guess what? It was the best freakin’ burger I’ve ever had. Better than New York’s famed Shake Shack burgers. Better than my stepmum’s veggie burgers (which are pretty awesome). Better than a cheeseburger at midnight.
The meat patty is generous, to say the least, and full of flavour. It’s rich, juicy and incredibly seasoned – amazing. Topped with a slice of cheese (it tastes like gruyere, but I could be wrong) that has melted over the patty deliciously, a bed of lettuce, caramelised onion, beetroot (of course) and a dollop of creamy mayo, it’s perfection in a brioche bun. And at just $10, it’s amazing value (most pub burgers are more expensive, right?) Plus, it doesn’t have fries on the side, so I’m not tempted to eat more than I need. Tick, tick, tick.
Plan B is run by Justin North, the chef behind the city’s best-known French restaurant, Becasse. This year, Justin was named Chef of the Year by the Sydney Morning Herald, and his restaurants (there are four) have won about a gazillion awards. In 2007, Becasse was named in the top 100 restaurants in the world. Pretty impressive stuff. Plan B is like Becasse’s little sister – a little less ambitious, but with the same quality and attention to detail as big sis Becasse. It’s a place to get lunch to take back to the office (like a pork belly sandwich, perhaps?) or a coffee and treat (banana, caramel and salted pecan tart, anyone?). It’s small but elegantly decked out, and might just be my new favourite spot.
Plan B by Becasse
204 Clarence St, Sydney
http://www.becasse.com.au/
9283 3450
Miss C and I went to Plan B for lunch today. I was nursing a nasty hangover and she was nursing a bottle of champers for me for Christmas – how apt! We both ordered the 800-day grain fed wagyu beef burger, and guess what? It was the best freakin’ burger I’ve ever had. Better than New York’s famed Shake Shack burgers. Better than my stepmum’s veggie burgers (which are pretty awesome). Better than a cheeseburger at midnight.
The meat patty is generous, to say the least, and full of flavour. It’s rich, juicy and incredibly seasoned – amazing. Topped with a slice of cheese (it tastes like gruyere, but I could be wrong) that has melted over the patty deliciously, a bed of lettuce, caramelised onion, beetroot (of course) and a dollop of creamy mayo, it’s perfection in a brioche bun. And at just $10, it’s amazing value (most pub burgers are more expensive, right?) Plus, it doesn’t have fries on the side, so I’m not tempted to eat more than I need. Tick, tick, tick.
Plan B is run by Justin North, the chef behind the city’s best-known French restaurant, Becasse. This year, Justin was named Chef of the Year by the Sydney Morning Herald, and his restaurants (there are four) have won about a gazillion awards. In 2007, Becasse was named in the top 100 restaurants in the world. Pretty impressive stuff. Plan B is like Becasse’s little sister – a little less ambitious, but with the same quality and attention to detail as big sis Becasse. It’s a place to get lunch to take back to the office (like a pork belly sandwich, perhaps?) or a coffee and treat (banana, caramel and salted pecan tart, anyone?). It’s small but elegantly decked out, and might just be my new favourite spot.
Plan B by Becasse
204 Clarence St, Sydney
http://www.becasse.com.au/
9283 3450
Sunday, December 6
eveleigh farmers market
"Hey," says Caliban. "I have an idea. Why don't we go to the farmers' markets at Carriageworks this morning?"
As someone who loves markets, food and Caliban (not necessarily in that order), I jump at the offer. Off to market we go!
We scoot over to the markets, located at Redfern's awesome new-ish venue, Carriageworks. It's a theatre, art gallery, marketplace and festival space all in one. We arrive perilously close to closing time (the markets run every Saturday from 8am to 1pm - we rock up at 12.30pm) but we manage to score some amazing food anyway.
Armed with an especially tart blood orange juice each, Caliban and I divide and conquer. He goes in search of cheese, and I'm looking for Christmas gifts. When we reunite, we've both got what we want. Caliban shows off wedges of washed rind brie and regular brie, and roasted macadamia nut butter from Hand'n'Hoe (plus some fresh macadamias from the same stall). I show him the Fatma's Farms sour cherry jam I've just picked up, plus the Pukara Estate Wasabi Mayonnaise (we're huge fans of Pukara's Wasabi Olive Oil, so I can't wait to try their mayo) and the Gumnut Salted Caramel Sauce. "Where's Sonoma?" Caliban asks, referring to Sydney's premier sourdough bakery, which has a stall here. We go in search of a stick of sourdough to spread with our new supplies, but as luck wouldn't have it, Sonoma was sold out.
We resolve to return next Saturday, earlier, so we can enjoy Toby's Estate lattes and Sonoma baked goods for brekky, and shop for more gorgeous food. Cannot. Wait.
Also, if you've ever bought anything from Etsy, you'll love the Eveleigh art markets, Finders Keepers, located adjacent to the farmers' market. It's exactly like Etsy, but live. Imagine! As Caliban rightly observed, "It's for trendy girls and hipster mummies." Exactly. There are stalls by Frankie and Dumbo Feather magazines, Trixie Delicious and Bespoke stationery. It's very cool and if I could have stayed there all day, I would've.
Eveleigh Farmers' Markets
243 Wilson St, Redfern
Every Saturday, 8am - 1pm
www.eveleighmarkets.com.au
As someone who loves markets, food and Caliban (not necessarily in that order), I jump at the offer. Off to market we go!
We scoot over to the markets, located at Redfern's awesome new-ish venue, Carriageworks. It's a theatre, art gallery, marketplace and festival space all in one. We arrive perilously close to closing time (the markets run every Saturday from 8am to 1pm - we rock up at 12.30pm) but we manage to score some amazing food anyway.
Armed with an especially tart blood orange juice each, Caliban and I divide and conquer. He goes in search of cheese, and I'm looking for Christmas gifts. When we reunite, we've both got what we want. Caliban shows off wedges of washed rind brie and regular brie, and roasted macadamia nut butter from Hand'n'Hoe (plus some fresh macadamias from the same stall). I show him the Fatma's Farms sour cherry jam I've just picked up, plus the Pukara Estate Wasabi Mayonnaise (we're huge fans of Pukara's Wasabi Olive Oil, so I can't wait to try their mayo) and the Gumnut Salted Caramel Sauce. "Where's Sonoma?" Caliban asks, referring to Sydney's premier sourdough bakery, which has a stall here. We go in search of a stick of sourdough to spread with our new supplies, but as luck wouldn't have it, Sonoma was sold out.
We resolve to return next Saturday, earlier, so we can enjoy Toby's Estate lattes and Sonoma baked goods for brekky, and shop for more gorgeous food. Cannot. Wait.
Also, if you've ever bought anything from Etsy, you'll love the Eveleigh art markets, Finders Keepers, located adjacent to the farmers' market. It's exactly like Etsy, but live. Imagine! As Caliban rightly observed, "It's for trendy girls and hipster mummies." Exactly. There are stalls by Frankie and Dumbo Feather magazines, Trixie Delicious and Bespoke stationery. It's very cool and if I could have stayed there all day, I would've.
Eveleigh Farmers' Markets
243 Wilson St, Redfern
Every Saturday, 8am - 1pm
www.eveleighmarkets.com.au
Saturday, December 5
born round: the secret history of a full-time eater
Apart from eating food, I also love reading about it. Restaurant reviews, cookbooks, food lovers' guides, foodie biographies, food-travel memoirs - I love it all. Jeffrey Steingarten, Ruth Reichl, Amanda Hesser, Jay Rayner, Julie Powell - all masters of the food-as-memoir genre, are all on my bookshelf. The most recent addition is Frank Bruni's Born Round: The Secret History of a Full-time Eater.
Until September 2009, Bruni was the chief restaurant critic at the New York Times. This means he was one of the most feared men in Manhattan. As in Ruth Reichl's biography Garlic & Sapphires, he explains the lengths he went to in order to disguise himself from cunning chefs and waiters. Pseudonyms (complete with credit cards), moustaches, hats and even wigs helped Bruni escape recognition. But the real story here isn't like Reichl's - who explained how she disguised herself as a series of "nobodies" in order to see what it was really like to be served in New York's top restaurants - it's the story of Bruni's struggle with his love of food and his ongoing weight battle.
From an Italian family who was big on showing love through food, Bruni developed problems with food from an early age. Always bigger than his brothers and sister, he learns early on that food is his chief comfort - and his parents are only too happy to indulge him. As he gets older, his sedentary job (journo) coupled with low self-esteem lead him to a dangerous binge-and-purge cycle (otherwise known as bulimia). When he finally gets it all together and manages to lose weight properly and healthily, he's offered one of the most coveted jobs in the food world - restaurant critic for the New York Times. Mmm.
He decides to accept, but sets himself a series of unenviable limits. His favourite personal trainer - the one with whom he achieved fantastic results - lives in Washington. Bruni pays a small fortune to take the train to Washington each week to work out with the powerhouse. He walks from restaurant to restaurant - often miles apart - to ensure that he's burning off the highly calorific meals he's consuming. He doesn't eat much during the day, so that he can indulge at night, when he's reviewing. Because a food critic can't just try one meal - you have to give a sense of the entire menu, after all - he only eats a few bites of each. Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink.
It's fascinating reading, not least for the gossipy side notes about New York's food scene (plus, an anecdote about the time Sarah Jessica Parker invites herself and husband Matthew Broderick to dinner with Bruni).
DDS verdict: read, with a glass of red and a bowl of pasta. Hearty stuff.
Born Round: The Secret History of a Full-time Eater, Frank Bruni
Available from Amazon
Until September 2009, Bruni was the chief restaurant critic at the New York Times. This means he was one of the most feared men in Manhattan. As in Ruth Reichl's biography Garlic & Sapphires, he explains the lengths he went to in order to disguise himself from cunning chefs and waiters. Pseudonyms (complete with credit cards), moustaches, hats and even wigs helped Bruni escape recognition. But the real story here isn't like Reichl's - who explained how she disguised herself as a series of "nobodies" in order to see what it was really like to be served in New York's top restaurants - it's the story of Bruni's struggle with his love of food and his ongoing weight battle.
From an Italian family who was big on showing love through food, Bruni developed problems with food from an early age. Always bigger than his brothers and sister, he learns early on that food is his chief comfort - and his parents are only too happy to indulge him. As he gets older, his sedentary job (journo) coupled with low self-esteem lead him to a dangerous binge-and-purge cycle (otherwise known as bulimia). When he finally gets it all together and manages to lose weight properly and healthily, he's offered one of the most coveted jobs in the food world - restaurant critic for the New York Times. Mmm.
He decides to accept, but sets himself a series of unenviable limits. His favourite personal trainer - the one with whom he achieved fantastic results - lives in Washington. Bruni pays a small fortune to take the train to Washington each week to work out with the powerhouse. He walks from restaurant to restaurant - often miles apart - to ensure that he's burning off the highly calorific meals he's consuming. He doesn't eat much during the day, so that he can indulge at night, when he's reviewing. Because a food critic can't just try one meal - you have to give a sense of the entire menu, after all - he only eats a few bites of each. Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink.
It's fascinating reading, not least for the gossipy side notes about New York's food scene (plus, an anecdote about the time Sarah Jessica Parker invites herself and husband Matthew Broderick to dinner with Bruni).
DDS verdict: read, with a glass of red and a bowl of pasta. Hearty stuff.
Born Round: The Secret History of a Full-time Eater, Frank Bruni
Available from Amazon
Thursday, December 3
homemade chilli - a DDS original recipe
Get this: some people actually eat two-and-five a day. You know, two serves of fruit, five serves of veggies. Seriously. I am one of those people.
That is to say, I try very hard to be one of those people. As much as I truly believe that everything is better with butter, I also try pretty hard to be healthy (for the most part). So when I'm cooking for Caliban and I at home, I make an effort to use as many veggies as possible. It helps immensely that Caliban (thank God) isn't one of those "meat-and-potatoes" men.
One of my favourite veggie-packed meals is this chilli. It's super healthy, low-fat, low-carb and most importantly, it actually tastes great. Try it and let me know what you think!
Homemade Veggie Chilli: a DDS original recipe
2 x 400gm cans chopped tomatoes
400gm can red kidney beans
1/2 cup tomato puree
1 red capsicum, chopped
10 large mushrooms, chopped
1 onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, chopped
Punnet cherry tomatoes, chopped into quarters
Tablespoon cumin*
Tablespoon ground chilli
Tablespoon cinnamon
Tablespoon oregano
1/2 cup chopped fresh coriander
* Honestly, I hardly ever measure spices (unless I'm baking). I think everyone has herbs and spices they love, and that you should determine how much of each you use based on this. If you hate chilli, don't use as much. Experiment until you get a result you love.
1. Add tablespoon of olive oil to saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and garlic. Stir until onion is soft and golden brown.
2. Add chopped capsicum and mushrooms. Stir for three minutes.
3. Add tomato puree, chopped canned tomatoes, kidney beans and cherry tomatoes. Stir until combined.
4. Add spices and simmer for as little as 10 minutes or as long as an hour.
5. Serve with Greek yoghurt, avocado and warm wholegrain tortillas. If you want to be naughty, serve with corn chips.
That is to say, I try very hard to be one of those people. As much as I truly believe that everything is better with butter, I also try pretty hard to be healthy (for the most part). So when I'm cooking for Caliban and I at home, I make an effort to use as many veggies as possible. It helps immensely that Caliban (thank God) isn't one of those "meat-and-potatoes" men.
One of my favourite veggie-packed meals is this chilli. It's super healthy, low-fat, low-carb and most importantly, it actually tastes great. Try it and let me know what you think!
Homemade Veggie Chilli: a DDS original recipe
2 x 400gm cans chopped tomatoes
400gm can red kidney beans
1/2 cup tomato puree
1 red capsicum, chopped
10 large mushrooms, chopped
1 onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, chopped
Punnet cherry tomatoes, chopped into quarters
Tablespoon cumin*
Tablespoon ground chilli
Tablespoon cinnamon
Tablespoon oregano
1/2 cup chopped fresh coriander
* Honestly, I hardly ever measure spices (unless I'm baking). I think everyone has herbs and spices they love, and that you should determine how much of each you use based on this. If you hate chilli, don't use as much. Experiment until you get a result you love.
1. Add tablespoon of olive oil to saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and garlic. Stir until onion is soft and golden brown.
2. Add chopped capsicum and mushrooms. Stir for three minutes.
3. Add tomato puree, chopped canned tomatoes, kidney beans and cherry tomatoes. Stir until combined.
4. Add spices and simmer for as little as 10 minutes or as long as an hour.
5. Serve with Greek yoghurt, avocado and warm wholegrain tortillas. If you want to be naughty, serve with corn chips.
Wednesday, December 2
crust - the takeaway pizza of (lazy, couch-sitting) kings
Do you live in Sydney? Great. Chances are, you have eaten Crust pizza. And chances are, you LOVE it.
Caliban and I are pretty spoiled for choice when it comes to pizza. With our proximity to Sydney's real Little Italy, Haberfield, we could eat at a different pizza place every night if our waistlines and wallets allowed it. But we do hold a very special place in our hearts for Crust, the gourmet pizza chain that's in just about every Sydney suburb by now. When we first started dating, we'd regularly eat their garlic prawn pizza (washed down with a couple of Becks each) while watching DVDs, cuddling, gazing lovingly into each others' eyes, and so on.
So you can imagine my excitement when I opened the mailbox last week to find a Crust menu - for our new, very local, very own Crust. Yes!
That very night, I treated Caliban to an at-home dinner date and we feasted on Garlic Prawn, White Anchovy and Herb and Garlic pizzas.
I'm pretty particular about pizzas. I don't like meat on them (save for salami) and I recoil when people order stuff like "barbecue chicken pizza". That's not pizza. I like thin-based pizzas with a handful of quality toppings. This is why margherita pizza will always be my favourite - chewy, milky buffalo mozarella on a thick, rich tomato base and a sprinkling of oregano. You can't beat it. But I do like seafood pizzas, even if purists will draw and quarter me for it.
Crust does do meat pizzas, and seafood pizzas, and even (quel horreur!) heart tick-approved pizzas. I've tasted from their menu extensively, and it's all pretty amazing, with quality ingredients and hard-to-beat bases. The menu is laid out really nicely, with a guide to bases (your standard tomato base is there, along with less traditional pumpkin, spinach and ricotta blend and olive tapenade bases) that's handy for first-time customers.
It's fairly expensive takeout (over $50 for our three pizzas and a - very - small tub of mango gelato) but Crust is such a standout standby option. While we didn't love the White Anchovy pizza (it was our first foray into white anchovy-land, and we weren't happy tourists: they're far fishier than their black counterparts), everything else, including delivery time - about 25 minutes - was spot-on. A fab, easy way to spend Saturday night.
Crust Gourmet Pizza Bar
Various locations
www.crust.com.au
Caliban and I are pretty spoiled for choice when it comes to pizza. With our proximity to Sydney's real Little Italy, Haberfield, we could eat at a different pizza place every night if our waistlines and wallets allowed it. But we do hold a very special place in our hearts for Crust, the gourmet pizza chain that's in just about every Sydney suburb by now. When we first started dating, we'd regularly eat their garlic prawn pizza (washed down with a couple of Becks each) while watching DVDs, cuddling, gazing lovingly into each others' eyes, and so on.
So you can imagine my excitement when I opened the mailbox last week to find a Crust menu - for our new, very local, very own Crust. Yes!
That very night, I treated Caliban to an at-home dinner date and we feasted on Garlic Prawn, White Anchovy and Herb and Garlic pizzas.
I'm pretty particular about pizzas. I don't like meat on them (save for salami) and I recoil when people order stuff like "barbecue chicken pizza". That's not pizza. I like thin-based pizzas with a handful of quality toppings. This is why margherita pizza will always be my favourite - chewy, milky buffalo mozarella on a thick, rich tomato base and a sprinkling of oregano. You can't beat it. But I do like seafood pizzas, even if purists will draw and quarter me for it.
Crust does do meat pizzas, and seafood pizzas, and even (quel horreur!) heart tick-approved pizzas. I've tasted from their menu extensively, and it's all pretty amazing, with quality ingredients and hard-to-beat bases. The menu is laid out really nicely, with a guide to bases (your standard tomato base is there, along with less traditional pumpkin, spinach and ricotta blend and olive tapenade bases) that's handy for first-time customers.
It's fairly expensive takeout (over $50 for our three pizzas and a - very - small tub of mango gelato) but Crust is such a standout standby option. While we didn't love the White Anchovy pizza (it was our first foray into white anchovy-land, and we weren't happy tourists: they're far fishier than their black counterparts), everything else, including delivery time - about 25 minutes - was spot-on. A fab, easy way to spend Saturday night.
Crust Gourmet Pizza Bar
Various locations
www.crust.com.au
Tuesday, December 1
it's goop!
Perhaps you've heard of Gwyneth Paltrow. She's an actress. An Oscar-winning one, at that. She's married to this guy, Chris Martin, who happens to be the lead singer of a band called Coldplay. They're fairly successful, I hear. Gwyneth, not content to "just" be an actress, wife of a rock star (oh, and mother to his two kids) and best friend to the likes of Madonna, Stella McCartney and Liv Tyler, has also taken on a website. It's called GOOP.
GOOP is where you go to get life-changing advice about well, how to change your life. According to Gwyn, it's all about "nourishing the inner aspect." There are lots of ways you can change your life, says Gwyneth. She shows us this through clever categories, like "Make", "Be", "See", and "Get." My favourite is "Go", in which Gwyneth explains where to find fruitarian-friendly food in Barcelona, and so on. It's incredibly useful stuff.
But I digress. As some of you may know, I work at a ladymag. As part of my work for said ladymag, I was asked to follow the gospel according to Gwyneth for a week, for the sake of a story that was unfortunately killed when a rival ladymag ran exactly the same idea. That's the way these things go, unfortunately. But all was not lost - during a week of nourishing my inner aspect, I learnt how to make vegan cookies. And by GOOP, they are awesome.
If you sign up to GOOP (and obviously, I recommend that you do), you'll receive Gwyn's pearls of wisdom every Friday, in newsletter form. In a newsletter titled simply, Babycakes, Gwyn teaches us how vegan baking can rock. She enlists the help of actual vegan baker Erin McKenna (who owns and runs NYC's Babycakes) and explains that even without eggs, milk and white flour, vegan baking is totally cool and deserving of praise. Now, I don't know about you, but when I indulge in cookies, cakes and the like, I want the real deal. I want to nourish the particular inner aspect that is crying out for dairy and eggs and sugar and flour.
But as I live as a disciple of Gwyneth, I dutifully make McKenna's Double Chocolate Chip Cookies. Surprisingly, I found most of the ingredients at Woolworth's. I couldn't find coconut oil anywhere, so I simply used olive oil and added a cup of shredded coconut. I don't want to know what Gwyneth would think about this, so I try to ignore the niggling voice that tells me it's probably not OK to change things up on Ms Paltrow.
When the dough was wet, it was very crumbly and didn't really stick together. I used a tablespoon-sized scoop to hold the portion together, and pressed this onto the baking paper. And you know what? They were delicious. My apologies to Gwyn - the cookies were dense, chocolate-y and really yummy. The texture was almost like flourless chocolate cake - which is definitely a plus with me. Here's the recipe:
Double Chocolate Chip Cookies, from Erin McKenna at Babycakes
GOOP is where you go to get life-changing advice about well, how to change your life. According to Gwyn, it's all about "nourishing the inner aspect." There are lots of ways you can change your life, says Gwyneth. She shows us this through clever categories, like "Make", "Be", "See", and "Get." My favourite is "Go", in which Gwyneth explains where to find fruitarian-friendly food in Barcelona, and so on. It's incredibly useful stuff.
But I digress. As some of you may know, I work at a ladymag. As part of my work for said ladymag, I was asked to follow the gospel according to Gwyneth for a week, for the sake of a story that was unfortunately killed when a rival ladymag ran exactly the same idea. That's the way these things go, unfortunately. But all was not lost - during a week of nourishing my inner aspect, I learnt how to make vegan cookies. And by GOOP, they are awesome.
If you sign up to GOOP (and obviously, I recommend that you do), you'll receive Gwyn's pearls of wisdom every Friday, in newsletter form. In a newsletter titled simply, Babycakes, Gwyn teaches us how vegan baking can rock. She enlists the help of actual vegan baker Erin McKenna (who owns and runs NYC's Babycakes) and explains that even without eggs, milk and white flour, vegan baking is totally cool and deserving of praise. Now, I don't know about you, but when I indulge in cookies, cakes and the like, I want the real deal. I want to nourish the particular inner aspect that is crying out for dairy and eggs and sugar and flour.
But as I live as a disciple of Gwyneth, I dutifully make McKenna's Double Chocolate Chip Cookies. Surprisingly, I found most of the ingredients at Woolworth's. I couldn't find coconut oil anywhere, so I simply used olive oil and added a cup of shredded coconut. I don't want to know what Gwyneth would think about this, so I try to ignore the niggling voice that tells me it's probably not OK to change things up on Ms Paltrow.
When the dough was wet, it was very crumbly and didn't really stick together. I used a tablespoon-sized scoop to hold the portion together, and pressed this onto the baking paper. And you know what? They were delicious. My apologies to Gwyn - the cookies were dense, chocolate-y and really yummy. The texture was almost like flourless chocolate cake - which is definitely a plus with me. Here's the recipe:
Double Chocolate Chip Cookies, from Erin McKenna at Babycakes
- 1 cup coconut oil
- 1 1/4 cup sugar
- 1/3 cup applesauce
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free All-Purpose Baking Flour (NB: this is obviously an American brand - I reckon any type of gluten-free plain flour is fine)
- 1/4 cup flax meal
- 1/2 cup cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum (NB: find this in the health food aisle)
- 1 cup chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 325°F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
In a medium bowl, mix together the oil, sugar, applesauce, cocoa powder, salt, and vanilla. In another medium bowl, whisk together the flour, flax meal, baking soda and xanthan gum. Using a rubber spatula, carefully push the dry ingredients into the wet mixture and combine until dough is formed. With the same spatula, gently fold in the chocolate chips just until they are evenly distributed throughout the dough.
Using a melon-baller, measure out the dough and place on the prepared baking sheets. Space the portions 1-inch apart. Gently press each with the heel of your hand to help them spread. Bake the cookies on the center rack for 14 minutes, rotating the trays 180 degrees after 9 minutes. The cookies will be crispy on the edges and soft in the center. Remove from the oven.
Let cookies stand 10 minutes. They’re best served warm, but to save them use a spatula to transfer the cookies to a wire rack and cool completely before covering. Place in an airtight container and store at room temperature for up to 3 days.
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