Today is Martin Luther King day here in the US of A, and I am days away from the commencement of semester two (hooray!). I have been a touch under the weather, which resulted in my first taste of the American healthcare system (but more about that later with a new recipe to sweeten the deal) As such I laid pretty low for Friday and Saturday as I regroup and organized for the coming semester. However, we made up for all the lazing over the remainder of the long weekend. Starting with our weekly Sunday morning ritual of Tim Hortons (Canadian Pride) and church at Hillsong NYC with the always wonderful Alyssa and Erin.
We closed out Sunday night with dinner at RedFarm and a stroll through the West Village with the stunning Robyn (no seriously, she is stunning. Like professionally stunning as in being utterly gorgeous is her career) and her exceptional boyfriend, Peter. The combination of engaging company, steaming seaweed infused green tea and a spectacular sunset over Jersey made it one of those evenings that make your world a little brighter and your heart a little happier.
As for today, I have been bustling around in our quaint kitchen whipping up a fresh batch of cookies to welcome my darling friend Meredith to the neighborhood. I haven’t dared a baking endeavor since we moved south of the border, simply out of fear that I no longer have access to my well stocked kitchen which most importantly includes my sexy, stainless steel Kitchenaid mixer. All my normal culinary tools are tucked away in boxes after they didn’t make cut for what we could cram into the cute crossover we drove across the country to our new manhattan home. So these delectable cookies were done old school. Butter creamed by hand and batter batted with old fashioned sweat and muscle strength. Turns out you need very little to make exceptional cookies -so whatever your kitchen looks like enjoy these moist, soft wonderful treats.
Cashew, Cranberry and Chocolate Chip Cookies
Makes a dozen
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup of dried cranberries (I like the apple juice sweetened ones from Whole Foods)
- 1 1/2 cups of flour (Your choice: Gluten Free Option, White or Whole Wheat)
- 1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 1/2 cup Butter, softened
- 1 1/2 cups brown sugar (or Brown Sugar Splenda. Sometimes I sub honey or agave and then you only need half the amount)
- 2 Eggs
- 2 tsp Vanilla
- 1 cup Roasted cashews, Chopped
- 1 1/2 cups Chocolate Chips (I use dark chocolate)
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350 and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In a large mixing bowl combine cranberries, flour, baking powder and salt.
- In another mixing bowl cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
- Beat in the two eggs.
- Mix in the vanilla.
- Fold the wet to dry and stir until combined fully.
- Stir in the cashews
- Stir in the chocolate chips
- Scoop heaping tablespoonful sized cookies and place on the baking sheet. Be sure to leave room for spreading (whole wheat flour won’t spread much).
- Bake 9 minutes or until golden brown on the bottom
- Remove from the oven, cool and serve.
Note:
- These cookies are great to freeze so I often make a large batch to store some in the freezer. They also taste ridiculously wonderful frozen.
Raising Jordans 