The Ever-So-Satisfying Chocolate Chip Pancakes

Yes, it's time for me to share with the world the magic of my chocolate chip pancakes. Granted, I found the recipe originally through Nigella Lawson's How to Be a Domestic Goddess, but in the past year or so I have added my own delights here and there and altered the measurements slightly.

Pancake Sunday is always an event. Syrups, juices, and occasionally Sangria? Needless to say, nothing is more comforting than those few hours for brunch in which the only things that fill the air are conversation, music, and the delightful aroma of freshly made chocolate chip pancakes.

Ready for it?

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus 2 dashes
1 tablespoon baking powder
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 large eggs, beaten
2 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
1 1/3 cups milk
100 grams chocolate chips

Being the students we are, we have no electric equipment, so all of the work has to be done by the mere strength of our hands. 

As is natural when mixing by hand, I had to separate the wet and dry ingredients. In one bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt and make a well in the centre for the dry ingredients. Unfortunately, due to my pancake-making fervour, I forgot to take a photo of the wet ingredients. However, in a separate bowl, mix the wet ingredients (beaten eggs, milk, butter, and vanilla extract - by the way, do not feel shy in adding extra vanilla!), and once done, pour into the well of the dry ingredients and get ready for the true work to begin. 

With the wet and dry in one bowl, whisk with all your might to get the lumpy bits out of the mixture, and once they are all gone, find your chocolate chips and mix them into the batter!

Then of course it's time to put the pancakes in the pan and start making the ever so famous pancake mountain. I certainly neglected my camera in this stage, but use your ladle and pour a scoopful in the pan. Wait for bubbles to form on the majority of the surface, flip, then wait a minute or two until steam comes out from the centre and the bottom of the pancake looks slightly golden. Repeat until complete!

Pancake Mountain after it started going up for grabs....

With pancakes on the table and syrups in hand, we ducked into the pancake mountain (and the eventual arrival of sangria) and had one wonderful brunch.

Follow the recipe, invite some friends, and I promise that your Sundays can be just as sunny, despite the infamous Scottish weather that is far from predictable....

Until next time, keep calm and munch on.

Lemony Goat's Cheese Chicken

Recently I met a fellow foodie that reminded me why I love food, cooking, and writing about it so much. Although I do not know my impact on those who surround me, I do know that when I cook, when I create a meal that is worthy of that satisfying "mhmm" silence, there is an appreciative look of recognition, the kind that makes that uncertainty go behind the clouds and disappear.
To have those I surround myself with surround one table for a mere few hours, to have my food be the primary reason for such a jovial assembly, keeps the smile on my face and a certain warmth in my heart.

Which is why I am starting this blog back up again, not only to keep my progress marked, but also to remind me that regardless of uncertainties, the simplest thing such as "Lemony Goat's Cheese Chicken" can make the day worthwhile.

So here it goes.

Ingredients
4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 garlic cloves, peeled and cut in half lengthwise
1 teaspoon salt
freshly ground black pepper
1 cup low-sodium chicken broth
2 teaspoons fresh thyme
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
4 ounces soft goat's cheese

I started by laying out my four chicken breasts and trimming off the gritty bits, then slightly pounding them down to get them all to a similar level of thickness. 

Having prepared the chicken, I heated the oil and the garlic in a sautee pan, stirring as to avoid burning, until the garlic was a nice golden brown.

Satisfied with my garlic, I added the chicken and cooked until golden, about three to five minutes on each side.

Chicken and Side Veg cooking away....

Once the chicken breasts turned golden, I cut each breast in half and added the salt, pepper, chicken broth, thyme and lemon zest. Then I covered the concoction, reduced the heat to a medium-low, and cooked the chicken and the beginnings of the sauce until the chicken was fork tender, about five minutes longer...

Sizzling away

With the chicken ready, I moved my pieces to a side platter to keep warm while I moved onto finishing the good stuff: the sauce. 

First, I increased the heat to high and boiled the sauce until thickened or syrupy, about three to five minutes. 

Then, with all the strength my weakling of an arm could muster, I vigorously whisked the goat's cheese into the sauce until properly mixed.

Finished Sauce with Succulent Chicken Bits

With the sauce complete, the chicken cooked, and the Side Veg reduced down to the perfect softness (merely a mix of courgettes and onions, coated with thyme and brown sugar, shrunken to the appropriate size), I began to prepare the plates! Adding a hearty portion of lemon zest and ginger rice to complete the tasty triad, I finished cooking and the eating began.

What would I change in retrospect? Nothing really. Besides more sauce. There really can never be enough... After all, isn't that what makes one say, "mhmm, that's the stuff"?

Oh what a success.
Next up is pancakes tomorrow then some sort of fish dish this coming week. Until then, happy food dreaming and go find yourself something tasty to munch on.

Pressing the Pause Button

So now that I am home for the summer, it seems my blog will be put on hold for awhile, but if I do make anything while I am home... then a post will come!

Until then, I will leave you with this quote from Henry Miller:
"Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such"

Chocolate Chip Cookies

So with exams in motion and English Literature in one week, I've been sadly neglecting this blog... but never fear! I have a batch of cookies to tell you about here.

Last weekend for a potluck dinner, I made some yummy chocolate chip cookies. Another interesting cooking experiment as we ran out of white sugar during the cooking process, but more about that later.

Here is the recipe I borrowed from Martha Stewart, as my recipe is all the way back home!

Ingredients
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar [I used caster]
1 cup packed light-brown sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tsp pure vanilla extract [I added an extra 1/4 tsp vanilla since I love it so much]
2 large eggs
2 cups (about 12 oz) semisweet and/or milk chocolate chips

This is the handy dandy measurement converter I use quite often as I bounce between US and UK recipes: http://allrecipes.com/howto/cup-to-gram-conversions/

Okay, time to begin! Preheated the oven to 350 (176 celsius) fahrenheit, then in a small bowl, I whisked together the flour and the baking soda and set aside.

Right about here the real work started. In a separate bowl, I combined the butter with both sugars (had to use an extra 50g of light brown sugar as I was 50g short of the caster sugar, oops!) and with a wooden spoon (sadly we dont have the facility of an electric mixer...) I vigourously mixed away until light and fluffy.

Next, I added the salt, vanilla, and eggs, stirring even faster until the whole concoction until well mixed.

Once that was done (and I gave my hand a bit of a rest!), I added the flour mixture and mixed until just combined.

And at last, the best part!! Stirring in the chocolate chips :)

Once the cookie dough was made, I placed them in tiny balls of dough on baking sheets, and baked in batched until the cookies were golden around the edges, but still soft in the center, about 8 to 10 minutes. 

Since I used a bit more brown sugar then the recipe called for, the cookies did end up a bit crisper than I would have wanted, but they still hit the spot and were gobbled up by everyone within minutes!

Chicken Korma & Potatoes with a Courgette and Shallot Mix

Title pretty much says it all... but I'm still going to give you a play-by-play.

Side Dish: Courgette and Shallot Mix
Well, thought we needed some vegetables to go with our Korma, potatoes, and rice, so I rummaged around and found shallots (two medium) in the cabinet to go with the courgettes (two large) that my flatmate had in the fridge. Then I started chopping away, cutting both the shallots and the courgettes lengthwise because, as my flatmate says, "for some reason circle vegetables just don't taste as good." And I would have to agree....

The Main Bulk: Chicken Korma with Potatoes and Rice
Potatoes boiling away, chicken browning in the pan, rice cooking and cooking...

Courgettes and shallots in one pan with olive oil (extra virgin) and salt and pepper, which I stirred quite often so as to keep rotating the courgettes for browning....
Simultaneously (and as you can probably guess, not too much stove space, so my flatmate and I had to do a bit of cooking acrobatics in order to have the timing of everything correct....), we added our Loyd Grossman Korma sauce to the browned chicken and let that cook until adding the boiled potatoes and simmering the combination until the chicken was cooked through.

The mixture cooking away (see the lovely browning on the courgettes!)....

And the chicken and potatoes soaking up all the delicious Korma sauce....

Until at last, complete.

Nom.

Very delicious overall. The softness of the shallots with the ever so slight crunch of the courgettes complimented the curry quite well! A bit more salt here and there would have made it even better, but then again, I just love salt. 

And This Saturday.....

Ratatouille and Chocolate Chip Cookies :)

Experimenting with Stuffed Chicken

On the Menu tonight:
Baked chicken stuffed with mozzarella and pesto
Caramelised onions and chestnut mushrooms, drizzled with garlic fried in sun-dried tomato oil
Sauteed Spinach
Chive Rice

Tonight I got to have a lot of fun, as my flatmates and I combined forces for dinner, and I got to show them a few of my cooking tricks.
As with the previous post, I used the same method of browning the garlic in the sun-dried tomato olive oil then quickly frying the stuffed chicken (to be detailed below) in said oil before placing it in the baking tray and drizzling it with the browned garlic and oil and placing it in the oven! For the baking, 200 celsius (fan oven) for about 25 minutes....

For the sides, since I had to use up all of my mushrooms (200g), I thought it would be best to caramlise them with the two medium-sized onions I had lying around:

Heat up the olive oil (do the 'water test,' aka, if you drop a bit of water and it sizzles, it's ready!) then add your mushrooms and onions. Once they have cooked down a bit (softened but not browned), add your brown sugar (done mostly by eye and preference), then stir away until cooked down to just past the point pictured above.
For the sauteed spinach? Pretty simple. Olive oil + spinach --> cook down until the spinach had turned to a deep green.
Chive rice? Cook your rice as per usual then add dried chives and butter (we use an olive-oil based butter).

So with all the elements cooked (and if you like to have fun with presentation as I do), this was the final product:

Everything was delicious, but to add a bit more description than that, I'll focus mostly on the chicken and onions/mushrooms (the spinach and rice speak for themselves):

Chicken:

Nice and juicy, with the mozzarella and pesto combination oozing slightly from the deep pocket we created earlier. Could have used a bit more pesto, but then again, I'm a pesto fiend. This could be even more improved by taking slices of sun-dried tomato and baking the chicken with that as well. But then again, another variation, another time....

Onions/Mushrooms:

Perfect amount of caramlisation. When cooking and adding the brown sugar, all you have to do is sprinkle the sugar in a thin layer on the top of the mixture, mix, then do that about three times. Soft and luscious with a tint of sweetness.