Double-Shot Mocha Chunks (Cookies) with some Chit Chat

Let me start with the Chit chat first: I went missing from this space for quite some time now. Lots of things are happening in life as a result of which not much activity going on in the kitchen. We just bought our first home and the whole process of finding a house, loan approval & closing was extremely stress-inducing (even though my husband being a worrier took care of everything, including the stress, I still had to deal with a little bit of it myself) and time consuming. We are really excited about moving into our OWN home and decorating it to our liking, but we are also a little bit nervous on how everything will turn out.

I have yet to start packing the kitchen (which I’m dreading already) and whole of S#%^@*$ that we accumulated through the years. I’m trying to go through things before packing, so I don’t end up with garbage in the new house; sort of starting our Spring cleaning a little early (FYI.. spring officially begins March 20^th.)

We had a small Gruha Pravesam (House blessing/ warming) ceremony with family and friends past weekend. We were lucky to find a Hindu priest who speaks telugu and the whole ceremony went extremely well. I was planning to cook the lunch, but ended up catering from a vegetarian restaurant called Sapthagiri in Jersey City. Everybody loved the food, I should have taken pictures but we were so busy with the guests that by the time I realized we had no pictures of food; most of the food was already gone.

Coming to the next topic of my post: Review of Jewelry & a Thank you.

Few weeks ago Sarah from Lushae Jewelry contacted me and asked me if I can try her jewelry and review it on my blog. I said YES and ordered this beautiful Floral Cocktail ring that matches with Amethyst studs & pendant that my mom bought me years ago. The ring looks absolutely amazing. The different size & slightly different color amethyst stones work extremely well together. I’ve got many complements on the ring already. Thanks Sarah for giving me the opportunity to try your gorgeous jewelry.

Few weeks back when Nupur (@ One hot stove) showed us her cute sleeve that she knitted to hold her plastic bags, I commented on her post that my drawer is also filled with plastic bags and I need to find a solution like her’s. I was so surprised when she offered to knit me a plastic bag holder and within a week I received this beautifully knitted plastic bag holder which is currently holding all my bags and has created ton of space in the drawer. Thank you so much Nupur.. You are the best.

That's my son's hand sneaking in fron the corner to pull out something from the drawer. :-)

Finally coming to the Mocha chocolate chip cookies, recipe courtesy King Arthur flour catalog. They didn’t spread as much as I expected them to (or as much as shown in the picture), but they tasted awesome-very chocolaty with a slight hint of coffee-not too sweet but just perfect. I used ghee for half the butter since I ran out of butter and the cookies had a slightly softer texture than crunchy.

Ingredients:
Unsalted Butter - 1/2 cup (I used 1/4cup butter + 1/4cup desi ghee)
Brown Sugar - 1 cup
Baking powder - 3/4tsp
Espresso powder - 1tsp
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Eggs - 2
Vanilla extract - 2tsp
Dutch-process Cocoa powder - 2/3 cup
White Whole wheat flour or Unbleached All-purpose flour - 1 3/4 cup
Semi sweet chocolate chips - 1 cup
Chocolate chunks - 1 cup (I used a mix of white & dark chocolate)
Method:

• Preheat oven to 350F.Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper.
• In a medium bowl, cream together the butter (&ghee), sugar, baking powder, espresso powder, and salt.
• Add eggs and vanilla, beating until smooth.
• Stir in the cocoa powder, then the flour; the dough will be stiff. Mix in the chocolate chunks & chips.
• Drop the cookies by tablespoonfuls (about 1.5" balls) onto the prepared baking sheets, leaving about 1.5" between them.
• Bake the cookies for 11-12 minutes. Remove from the oven, and allow them to cool on the pan.