Today, Wednesday the 29th of January is a day of celebration. Today, at the chime of 9am, you shall hear the collective sigh of tens of thousands of parents of school aged children in New South Wales as they hand their kids over to the sometimes –dubious state school system. That’s right folks, the kids are back to school. One month of summer holidays has finally come to a close. No more “daaaad what can I do?” or “daaaad I’m hungry” or shitty cartoon theme songs (actually, I do mostly like the cartoons). No more kids eating away at each others ability to bare the pain of the others flickering, snake-like tongue. No more… well… ummm, they really are great kids (just like me when I was younger), but they have really had enough of hanging out with each other (and us) 24/7.
But with the promise of an end to the pain and suffering comes the dawning of another reality; school lunches. Time to pull our heads back into gear and into the routine of lunches, fruit break, snacks etc… and while we’re at it I really must remember I need to pick the kids up from the bus on the way home from work… shit, and canteen too.
So yesterday, in one final last ditch effort to keep a child amused for a minute or two, I decided we would make some cookies for the school lunch boxes (not because the school lunch boxes live and breath and have a penchant for eating cookies, but because that is what the kids take their lunch to school in).
Not being the owner of a noticeable or proud sweet tooth, I summoned the force that always helps me to conquer these obstacles… to climb higher, faster, stronger… my inner personal trainer and crème puff guardian angel… the force of… Jennee (ex-pastry chef and lover of sweet things. I guess that’s where I come into the picture). It was quite simple really, a quick call and next thing I know there is a message on my phone saying, and I quote, “check the emails bitch”. So check the emails I did. The recipe I received from Jennee seemed to be the goods, and I base this assumption on absolutely no cookie baking experience, but still I thought it could use a bit of the ol’ Grazza je ne sais quoi. So I changed a couple of things and these cookies still turned out pretty damn good. Nice and crunchy, chocolatey and goji-ish which are a few of the things I like to see in my cookies. Just don’t try and bake these puppies at 190C because they do get pretty dark pretty quickly. Lesson learned. Here’s how we rolled…
Choc chip and goji berry cookies
150g unsalted butter, softened
½ cup caster sugar
½ cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1 cup plain flour
¾ cup almond meal
½ cup dark chocolate chips
½ cup goji berries
- Preheat a fan-forced oven to 150C
- Cream the butter and sugar
- Add egg and mix well
- Add vanilla, flour and almond meal and mix well
- Stir through choc chips and goji berries
- Press cookies out into cookie sized type things and place on a lined baking tray, leaving 3cm space in between
- Bake for 15 minutes at 150C
- Cool and then eat, or eat straight from the oven and risk 3rd degree burns on the roof of your mouth from the molten lava chocolate
- Don’t forget to save some for the kids lunch boxes
Love you boys. Have a great day!
foodisthebestshitever 
17 responses to “Chocolate chip and goji berry cookies… and the kids go back to school”
Nice use of goji berries. I’m used to goji berries in savoury brothy soups. My mum gave me goji berries when I was going through a Chinese soup phase but I got over that phase and now have a bounty goji berries. I never even considered them for baking.
They pretty much ruled in these cookies. Good replacement for currants or craisins I think…
Yes! School’s in session. It’s always nice to get them back into the routine, but it not nice to have to concern ourselves with “lunch foods”. Great cookie recipe here. I love goji berries. I like to eat the chocolate covered ones! Glutton.
I only just found out you can get choc covered gojis when Jennee was talking about them the other day. She said we have them all the time, but then realised she eats them all on the way home from the shops… hence me not knowing they existed!
The end of the pain and suffering of a parent means the beginning of mine for the next 10 weeks – teachers need cookies too…send some to me! 🙂
Teachers need special cookies! Good luck my friend! I do not envy you…
well then – you can send those special cookies down too – haven’t has ‘special cookies’ since – oh, let’s see -this just recent New Year Eve down Ocean Grove – gotta love the surf coast life 🙂
Yeeew. (That’s surfie talk for hell yeah)
What??? YUM!
Yeah. Good eh 🙂
ah the return of the school lunch box this week…I wasn’t quite ready I don’t think.
It’s always a bit of a shock but we did pretty well this year…
Sorry to hijack this post, but I have a question – I made your cherry tomato, capsicum and chilli jam on the weekend… it’s super runny, almost like a pasta sauce. I’m guessing that’s wrong? And, how long will it keep? I have 3 freaking L of the stuff!!!
(Hijacking because I can’t comment on the original post for some reason. I hate technology!)
Please, thank you, sorry and all that.
Absolutely no worries at all. Hijack the shit out of whatever you want!
Reduce it down some more on a low heat until it’s thick and jammy. Might take an hour or so (Sometimes the tomatoes will have a little more moisture in them). You can test it by putting a tablespoon in the fridge to see if it sets when it’s cold. It will last for a month in the fridge or heat treat it in jars and it will last for a year/years.
Good luck!! Let me know how you go…
Okay cool, I’ll get it back on the stove.
Erm, heat treat? I sterilized my jars in boiling water and then blow dried them to be safe they were dry…
Thanks!!
If you simmer the filled jars in water for 20 minutes it will create a vacuum seal and they will last for ages. Google may be your friend here… 🙂
Epic! Thanks!