food & drink magazine week!

There is a great magazine you can find at most LCBO stores across Ontario called Food & Drink. It’s huge, beautiful and free!

I’ve picked it up on occasion and once home I see recipes that include “caviar” and “confit”, the sort of words which seem just a little too much for me to handle on a weeknight basis, so I’d always defer back to my Everyday Food magazines. While shopping in the LCBO this weekend I came across the Spring 2013 issue of Food & Drink and decided to give it a good look through and found myself inspired. I realized that a majority of these recipes are quite straight-forward and, although there are some more technical recipes that call for high-end ingredients, the majority are more geared toward weeknight dining. I bookmarked several recipes and even pulled out a couple back issues and flagged recipes from those as well. So this week we’ll be preparing all our dinners from recipes published in Food & Drink. I’m out to see how easy they are to prepare and how they fare in flavour.

I started off yesterday by baking these Espresso Chocolate Chunk Cookies from the Early Summer 2012 issue. When I read the recipe I realized we had everything in the house to make them so I literally jumped right into them. This recipe doesn’t require room temperature butter so it meant I could get started right away. No fancy equipment, just a couple bowls, whisk and spatula are all you need. Instead of a double boiler I opted to microwave the chocolate, espresso powder and butter together on a low setting and stirring frequently. A little more risky but easier when you are careful. I used Ghirardelli bittersweet baking chocolate along with Ghirardelli chocolate chips. The cookies turned out very dark and rich. Out of the oven they were like eating the cookie version of a chocolate lava cake. Although these are definelty a chocolate lover's cookie there are loads of other flavours going on here. The abundance of added ingredients meant the cookies didn’t really have as much butter and sugar as I’m quite used to seeing in most cookie recipes. So in my rationale (if you can call it that) these are maybe a little healthier? Yes, and we all know dark chocolate is better for you indeed! And considering all the different additions each bite gives you a little something different. Some cherry, some pecan and some strictly chocolate bites. These are a total breeze (and joy) to bake and total pleasure to eat!