Chocolate Chip Cookies

Barley Chocolate Chip Cookies

I no longer remember why my friend Michelle and I settled on late November for our trip to New York. It seems a bit nuts looking back. Sure, the week of Thanksgiving is a great time to go to New York if you want cheap flights and low hotel rates. But you will soon discover why there are less than average number of tourists per square meter: it is bloody cold! Walking around all day in sub-zero temperatures while worrying about the forecast snow meant frequent coffee breaks were needed just so we could escape the cold for a bit, warming up with our hands wrapped around multiple mugs of coffee and our winter coats draped over our knees like woollen blankets. It also meant that a bowl of ramen for dinner one night at Ivan Ramen in Clinton Street totally hit the spot. The only reason I decided to wash down my steaming bowl of ramen with iced (!) tea

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Chocolate Chip Cookies with Chickpea Flour

Chickpea flour, also known as gram flour or garbanzo bean flour, is nothing other than dried chickpeas ground to a flour-like powder. It’s been a pantry staple of mine ever since I discovered what the Italians call ‘farinata’ – thick, pancake like slabs of chickpea flour batter, flavoured with rosemary and salt and that have been cooked (well, practically deep-fried given the amount of oil used) at a high temperature on well-oiled baking trays. Street food at its finest (and simplest). Chickpea flour is also great to have on hand when making veggie burgers as it helps absorb excess moisture. And, chickpea flour is a nutrition powerhouse, containing at least double the amount of protein than regular wheat flour while being rich in vitamin B6, iron, magnesium and potassium. Why should you care you ask? Because baking chocolate chip cookies with chickpea flour yields what are possibly the most delicious chocolate chip cookies ever (and that just happen to be gluten-free). Moreish,

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Cacao Nib and Buckwheat Crunch Cookies

  Since moving to Rome in November, Italy has not stoppped to surprise me – while healthfood stores are hard to track down and most Italians think nothing of eating sugar-laden pastries for breakfast, a pile of pasta for lunch and a pizza for dinner (which might also explain the mountain of prunes on offer in most supermarkets!), it is surprisingly easy to find a huge variety of different types of flours and sweeteners. My small local supermarket stocks spelt, buckwheat and kamut flour (in addition to a whole plethora of different types of wheat flours for baking and pasta-making), I know a couple of places where I can buy chia seeds and I can get my hands on maple syrup, agave syrup and molasses with a simple detour during my lunch break. While my impression is that there cannot be a big market for these ingredients in Italy given that I have yet to eat a homemade birthday cake

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I’m not quite there yet she says …

So.  This is my first post on this shiny new blog.  And for now, a blank page is staring back at me.  See, the thing is, my head is full of ideas, chock full to be exact, ideas of what to bake, what to cook, what to eat (and who to eat it with) and what to write, and yet, I spent another day working late.  And I can’t even complain, at least I ate at home.  Yes, leaving the office at 8 on a cold November evening to run home to a house that currently has no heating was maybe not the best idea, but at least I got some exercise in and am eating at home before doing further work from home.  And yes, dinner was nothing blog-worthy, involving a veggie wrap and some grapes.  But at least there was a cup of tea and an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie for dessert.  And in case you are wondering

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