We won! We won! India got home the Cricket World Cup after 28 years! What football is to Europe, super bowl is to the Americans, cricket is to India. Its a religion here- and every one goes crazy with competitiveness when it comes to cricket. And yesterday was the final of World Cup 2011- where India took on Sri Lanka and made history when Dhoni, India’s captain (and my current crush!), hit a six to cross Sri Lanka’s score of 274 with still 6 wickets left in hand. Its such an exhilerating feeling and still sinking in! The last time we won, in 1983, I was not even born and had only heard and seen pictures of Kapil Dev, the then Indian team captain, holding the coveted Cup. I am so proud to be an Indian today and I think I share this sentiment with 1.2 billion Indians. Team India you did us proud!
Today was my third day of the massage treatment and I just did not want to go. I slept real late- the excitement of winning the World Cup made it difficult to sleep last night. In fact, I have been sleeping quite late these days. For the past few weeks I didn’t get time to sit on the internet too much. And ever since I am back at my parents place, I realised there was a lot of blogging to catch up on. So, I have been busy thinking what else can I make. And as a result, I’m surfing through all the lovely food blogs out in the web world. And once you start doing that, there’s just no end! Plus, going through all the lovely blog sites at night leaves me so hungry that it becomes difficult to sleep with a growling stomach.
As a result of incomplete sleep for the past few days, getting up early today was a task. Also, it’s not a relaxing kind of massage that I’m going for. The old lady who does it uses all her strength and it is quite painful. In fact, day before I hurt my knee really badly (I’m very clumsy and keep bumping into stuff), so when I went yesterday morning I told her to massage gently. But she didn’t. In fact, she put even more pressure! I oohed! & aahed! but she continued, saying that this would help the swelling to go. And well it kind of did, but I don’t know if it was a result of time or the massage. They do say, though, that since she uses so much pressure and probably because of the heat generated in the body, it helps one lose weight!Well, as they say – no pain, no gain and since I am already seeing some results I pushed myself to get up and go for the massage.
I told you about the tea party my mom had kept for her friends. Besides the caramelized onion tartlets, I also made some mocha chocolate chip cookies that day. I did not want to make regular chocolate chip cookies, and found the addition of coffee to the cookie batter a good twist. I found the recipe here. Kate’s site is beautiful- very creative with mouth-watering photographs. I saw a lot of recipes on her site and they are all going on my to-do list!
I did, though, like always, goof up with this recipe too. I know, such an easy recipe and I make a mistake here too! Well, I accidently left the oven on grill setting instead of bake and as a result the tops browned and I thought the cookies got baked. When I took them out and was putting the second batch- I realised the goof-up! I could have put them back in- but I thought of keeping the almost baked cookies for a cookie dough ice cream, which, hopefully, I’ll be making tomorrow. By the way, the cookies were a hit. Everyone enjoyed them!
MOCHA CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
Adapted from Framed Cooks
- 2 cups flour
- 3 tablespoons instant coffee powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 sticks/ 226 gms butter, cut into chunks
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 pound chocolate chips or chunks — any variety you like.
Directions
- Whisk flour, coffee, baking soda and salt together in a bowl.
- Beat the butter with a hand mixer until lightened. Add granulated sugar and beat for 30 seconds. Add brown sugar and beat for another 30 seconds. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla and beat until blended.
- Fold in the flour mixture, mixing until just incorporated. Add chocolate and mix until evenly blended in.
- Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill in fridge for several hours to overnight.
- Preheat oven to 350, and line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Drop a heaping tablespoon of dough onto sheets, leaving 2 inches between cookies. Bake for 10-12 minutes.
- Cool on racks.