"Utter Peanut Butter Nutter"

I love peanut butter! I have since I was really little and sang along to this song. It is so yummy, and so versatile - in a sandwich, on toast, with jam, under tinned spaghetti (try it before you shake your head in disgust!) or best of all, by the spoonful! Whittaker's recently released a 'Peanut Butter' block of chocolate, it is to die for decadent and highly addictive.

Each individual piece of the block is filled with smooth sticky peanut butter that Whittaker's make themselves using cocoa butter - YUM! I had 2 blocks sitting in the pantry calling my name so I decided I needed to make one into 'Peanut Butter Chocolate Cookies'. I remembered seeing a recipe using Whittaker's Peanut slabs over on my favourite food blog 'heartbreakpie' so I used this recipe as a starting point. From there I created some rather delicious cookies that I doubt will survive the rest of the day!

'Peanut Butter Chocolate Cookies'

110g softened butter
¼ cup brown sugar
2 tbsp golden syrup
2 tbsp milk

¼ cup crunchy peanut butter (slighty heaped)

1 tsp vanilla extract
½ tsp vanilla paste
1 ½ cups plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
180g Whittaker's Peanut Butter chocolate

Beat together the softened butter, brown sugar, golden syrup, milk, peanut butter, vanilla extract and vanilla paste for a couple of minutes until fluffy.

Sift over the plain flour ½ cup at a time, stirring each lot in before adding the next. Roughly chop the Whittaker’s Peanut Butter Chocolate and add to the mixture. Mix with a wooden spoon or your hands until it is all mixed together into a yummy cookie dough. Don’t start eating it or you won’t have any left to make the cookies! 

Roll the dough into balls and place on baking papered oven tray, push down gently with a fork. Bake on 180*C for 15-20 minutes or until golden. These cookies magically take on that delightful peanut butter property of slightly sticking to the roof of your mouth, so I recommend enjoying them with a glass of cold milk.

In case you hadn't noticed, this is my second blog post in two days! It may or may not be me procrastinating in doing my lab report...cookies > statistics and anyone who says it's the other way around is completely nutty! Hahaha a blog post about peanut butter that refers to someone being nutty! It amazes me that people don't see how hilarious I am. Well, before I drown in self satisfaction and have to come back red faced in 2 months time full of apologies I'd better sign off. Happy baking!

x Hungry Lab

"Those Lazy Hazy Crazy Days Of Summer"

Oh dear, it seems I am getting into a 'every 2 months' rhythm of blog updates. I am going to endeavour to keep my posts shorter, that way there will be more of them and hopefully more frequent posts! Of course many people have tried to limit my talking over the years...they all failed. But hey, it's worth a try. Wish me luck!

Over the Summer holidays, my boyfriend and I were lucky enough to spend a couple of nights in paradise. This paradise exists in the Coromandel and it is really something else. Here is the view from the front porch:

We spent our time lounging about reading and soaking up the Sun or out on the water fishing or watching our friends free dive spear fishing. Between us we caught kingfish, kahawai and snapper and for dinner we had an entree of kokoda/poisson cru. It's super easy to make and such a nice way to eat fish! There's a range of ways to make it, dependent on personal tastes, but this is how I like to make it:

Kokoda/Poisson Cru

2 fillets of fresh fish
2-3 large lemons
a cucumber
a red capsicum
a red onion and/or 2-3 spring onions
2 tomatoes
a chilli (optional)
some fresh coriander (YUCK!)
a tin of coconut cream

Cut up the fish into roughly 1cm pieces, put them in a bowl, squeeze over enough lemon juice to just cover the fish then cover the bowl and place in the fridge. It depends how cooked you want the fish as to how long you let the lemon juice cook it, I love sashimi so I usually only let it 'cook' for up to 3 hours. When you're ready cut up the cucumber, capsicum, onion, spring onion, tomatoes and chilli (if you're using it), remove the fish from the fridge, pour off 3/4 of the lemon juice and add the chopped ingredients and the coconut cream. Serve with some chopped fresh coriander on the side. Yum!

For our main we had some crispy potatoes and fillets of kingfish that were coated in a thin layer of flour or cajun spiced flour and fried on the barbeque, and a yummy salsa verde inspired salad. Then we rolled ourselves off to bed ready to do it all again the next day - bliss!

Those days seem very far away as I sit here in Wellington as it grows colder by the minute and I am alternating typing hands so I can keep the free hand firmly clasped around my cup of tea for warmth! If you are suffering through the recent cold here in Wellington, you should head down to the recently opened 'August' on Garrett Street for a delicious People's coffee to warm you up.

August is both a cafe and an exhibition space, providing excellent takeaway coffee, yummy filled croissants and baguettes and frequently changing art for you to browse while you wait. It's run by the same lovely trio as 'Milk Crate' and I have had to increase my coffee intake in order to visit both each day - go and check it out!

x Hungry Lab