Easiest Ever Chocolate-Dipped Peanut Butter Cookies

Oh my lord, where has the time gone? It's been ages since I've visited this little corner of my world and I gotta say I've missed it. 

Since we last chatted, my life has been flip flopped and turned completely on it's head. Luckily, the end result is rich with new perspectives, new friends, new experiences, new things learned.

 

Just to give you a taste of what has been going on, here's a little list of recent major events:

1. The big dance show I was choreographing for the past 4 months was finally performed! We presented the show in Tangier, Tetuan and Rabat with incredible receptions in each city. Near the end of rehearsals, I truly thought we were not going to pull it off, but in the end somehow we all pushed through. And it happened. And it was great. And I am beyond proud of my dancers.

2. My friend and I moved! I won't get into gritty details, but basically there were some complications with our old house and we were forced to find a new one. The great news is that our new apartment is in the city center and even more spacious and beautiful than the last. So we are happy and finally all settled with that.

3. I'm starting to teach more classes at a relatively new performance & studio venue in Tangier called Tabadoul. I have just begun prepping and advertising for that as well as trying to find inspiration for choreography, because after that last performance I am creatively exhausted.

4. I have another new dance project coming up that I have just started conceptualizing. It's still in it's baby stages so I'll elaborate more soon :)

Phew. So that is where I have been. Even though there's still a lot going on in my life, I feel a bit more settled and centered now than I did in the past couple weeks (thanks to my amazing friends and a certain new special someone...), which means time to get back to writing, baking, photographing, blogging. For crazy times, let's start with one of the simplest recipes I've ever made. 

These peanut butter cookies are made with literally 4 ingredients and the result is slightly chewy, perfectly crumby & rich with flavor. Make with caution- they are seriously addictive. 

Easiest Ever Chocolate-Dipped Peanut Butter Cookies (gluten-free)
recipe from the Food Network

makes about 2 dozen small cookies

250g creamy peanut butter
200g granulated sugar
1 egg
150g dark chocolate

Preheat your oven to 375º F (190º C) and grease a baking sheet. Cream together the peanut butter and sugar in a mixing bowl, then whisk in the egg. Form the dough into little balls and press down into disks on the sheet. Bake for about 12 minutes or until the edges are golden brown. Let cool completely.

While the cookies are cooling, melt the chocolate in the microwave or a double boiler, stirring occasionally. Using a spoon, dip and coat half of each cookie in chocolate and place on parchment paper. Let sit in the fridge for about 30 minutes or until the chocolate has hardened. Eat, share, enjoy.

Pineapple Almond Upside-Down Bars

So I thought that making gluten-free and vegan cakes would be the death of me. But in fact, after discovering rice flour and cheap almonds at my favorite little hanut, I've discovered that it's not too bad. It's actually kind of an adventure. And this particular adventure with pineapple and dates and buttery goodness was definitely a success. Upside-down cakes have always been one of my favorite things to make, but the dense consistency of this particular dessert makes it really more bar-like than cake-y. Whatever you call it, trust me when I say you'll want to eat the whole pan down to the last crumb in one sitting.

I teamed up with the lovely Valerie from Nuance & Bubbles for this recipe, combining flavors from her tropical Puerto Rican beaches and my Tangier coastline to create a delicious international fusion. Head on over to her blog for the whole post and the recipe!

More updates on life this weekend. For now, lots to do, lots to do.
Just keep dancin'

Oh, and you can follow Nuance & Bubbles on facebook, twitter, and instagram :)

xx

(Almost) Raw Chocolate Orange Torte

Last week I finally was able to wrangle a friend into teaching me Darija (the Moroccan dialect of Arabic) on a weekly basis, and you know what? I forgot how much fun it is to learn a new language. We will put aside the fact that I'm learning it from a cute young Moroccan guy with adorable broken english and just focus on the fact that language is amazing. New sentence structures, grammar, vocabulary- man, I should have been a linguistics major. Granted, every time I try to pronounce the Kh I sound like a cat coughing on it's own fur and when I try to do that throaty R I sound like one of the Muppets, but you know, it's a process. Practice makes... well, better.

It may be difficult, but I love that I'm figuring out that I can make these sounds with my mouth that I didn't even think were possible. It's like biting into a new and delicious and totally foreign piece of fruit with each new word. 

In fact, Darija is almost as delicious as this Almost Raw Chocolate Orange Torte. 

(Did you see what I did there?)

             

But seriously. This tri-layered torte is smooth, creamy, and just raw enough to sort of trick your brain into thinking this is really more of a health food than dessert so let me just eat one more sliver. Make it two.

(Almost) Raw Chocolate Orange Torte

Crust
150g almonds (we toasted them for extra flavor, but that's definitely not raw, so it's totally optional)
3 tbsp coconut oil
1 tbsp tahini or other nut butter
1 tbsp sweetener (we used dark brown sugar but you could also use maple syrup or raw honey)

Filling
200g raw cashews, soaked for 2-3 hours or overnight
150g medjool dates, soaked for 1-2 hours
150g vegan dark chocolate
1 tbsp orange zest

Ganache
100g vegan dark chocolate
3 tbsp soy or almond milk

Begin with the crust: line an 8" or 9" round pan with a piece of parchment paper. Pulse almonds in a food processor until ground into a meal. Add coconut oil, tahini and sweetener and mix with your fingers until it starts to stick together. Press into the bottom of the pan and stick in the fridge while you make the rest of the layers.

To prepare the filling, melt the chocolate in a double boiler and scoop it into your food processor with the rest of the ingredients. Blend until smooth & mousse-like. Spread the filling evenly on top of the crust and place in the fridge to set for at least 1 hour.

In the meantime, make the ganache by melting the chocolate and soymilk together in your double boiler. Whisk until smooth and set in the fridge to cool until the rest of the torte is set. Once it's all ready, flip the torte & crust out of the pan onto a plate and pour the ganache over the top. Slice, serve & smile.

Striped Coconut Shortbread Jamprints

My days have been especially rich lately- full of friends visiting, showing them the sights and the craziness of life in Tangier, cooking, brainstorming for new projects, and as always, dancing through the mornings, evenings, and sometimes late into the night. Dance has consumed my life recently, in the most wonderful way. If my body doesn't move in some sort of creative or challenging fashion for more than 24 hours, I get all restless and antsy. 

The thing is, though, I don't do it for the performance. I dance and choreograph for the process. I love creating something original and watching it unfold and meld before your eyes. You feel the push and pull of it, and sometimes feel the push more than the pull when things aren't going so well, but it's amazing how things always come together when you least expect them too.

I think this fascination with process ties in with my love of cooking and baking. The quiet processes of rolling out dough, melting chocolate, folding batter, each one adds to the anticipation and surprise found in the final result. These cookies especially, in the way the dough only begins to stick together after repeated kneadings and squishings. The outcome is a crumbly shortbread cookie, lightly flavored with coconut oil and sweetened by chocolate and jam. Trust the process, relish the cookie. I made these for my dear dancers and they were a happy success. 

Striped Coconut Shortbread Jamprints

vegan & gluten-free 

adapted from Redpath Sugar

makes 1 1/2 dozen cookies

50g rice flour

100g gluten-free oat flour

2 tsp cornstarch

1/2 tsp salt

60g powdered sugar (we made it homemade)

3-4 tbsp coconut oil

1 tbsp vanilla soy or almond milk

50g dark chocolate

mixed fruit jam

Preheat your oven to 350º (175º C). Combine the flours, cornstarch, salt and sugar in a large bowl. Using your fingers, mix in 3 tbsp of coconut oil and the soy milk, kneading until it comes together in a sticky ball. If the dough is too crumbly, add the extra tbsp of coconut oil. It will take about 3-5 minutes of working it through your fingers for it to start sticking, so you know, don't lose hope. Form the dough into little balls and set them on a baking sheet, pressing down the centers with your thumb. Bake for about 10 minutes or until just slightly golden brown on the edges. 

While the cookies cool completely, melt the chocolate in a double boiler. Generously drizzle the chocolate over the cookies, let it harden for a a couple minutes, and finish up with a little scoop of fruit jelly plopped into each thumbprint center. 

Cinnamon & Sesame Apple Cake

Okay get ready- I'm gonna get a little philosophical on you guys today. Bear with me.

I try to write every day (uh huh sure) and the other morning I ended up writing about how I tend to think of life in chapters. I blame it on excessive reading ever since I was a kid- although what is excessive, really, when it comes to reading? Some of these life chapters are longer than others, but they always open out onto a new page. Fresh ideas, plot twists. Unexpected words put into unexpected sentences.

Ugh, sorry, I'll stop with the extended metaphor.

Sunshine, Spice & Everything Nice

For the past 2 months, every time I chat with friends or family from Minnesota, they start the conversation with well it snowed another 6 inches today, no big deal. 
Sorry guys, but I gotta say I don't miss that at all. I got my fix of snow and a white Christmas while I was home for 3 weeks in December, but that was all I needed. 

Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Scones with Honey Coconut Cream

They stare at me while I
craaave yoou

This is the song I was singing to these scones the whole time I made them. What, you don't sing to your food? Psh, crazy talk. All the cool kids do it.

Caramel Almond Sandwich Cookies

I have this problem sometimes. I am a hardcore perfectionist. I'm not sure exactly where or why I got it, but I have very clear memories of being a 10 year old kid rewriting pages of homework because the handwriting on the first draft didn't look pretty enough. What can I say? I was (am) a little bit of a freak. Isn't everyone in their own way?

Anyhow, recently I've been trying to battle the perfectionist in me and learn to ease up on things that can be eased up on. Because the issue with wanting every result to be perfect all the time is that it hinders your ability to experiment. And anyone who bakes or creates knows the importance of experimentation. I think I'm finally starting to get it down. 

No-Bake Chocolate Truffle Tarts

Oof. Valentines Day is coming up and while it may not be a big deal in Tanger, the blogging world is filling up with red and pink and heart-shaped this and that. So I've decided now is a good time to confess my deep, deep love

for solo travel.

Here's the deal. I'm pretty young. And as much as some of these women here in Tangier would love to marry me off to a nice Moroccan man asap, I'm really in no rush to fall for any one person. The way I see it, you don't go searching for those kind of things. They usually catch you off guard. 

Sesame Orange Cookies

In the past couple days, 3 notably exciting things happened.

1. I taught my first dance class at the conservatory here. By the end, no one was crying and the women were smiling and sweating, so you know. Success.
2. I took my first ride in a Moroccan grand taxi. If you've been here you know exactly what I'm talking about. If you haven't, picture a can of sardines. Now picture a car of sardines. Now picture a small car of 7 people (driver included) who look like sardines in a can, smushed together for an hour on the way to Tetouan. It's an essential if not slightly uncomfortable experience.
Somehow I managed to squeeze my hands down to my purse, pull out my camera and take the following picture of the stunning mountains surrounding the city.

Challenges & Quiche

I am the kind of person who likes a good challenge. For a while I was thinking of maybe moving to California or New York to find internships or continue my studies, which don’t get me wrong, are both incredible cities where someday I might like to live, but there was this weird pushy part of me that kept yelling “It’s too easy!” I felt this need to go somewhere that would seriously challenge me, teach me about different cultures, open up my mind, and from time to time make me feel as if I know nothing about the world at all.

And so I chose Tangier. Or, as they say, Tangier chose me. I’m not really sure yet.

Garlic Greens & Golden Tahini Sauce

Well here I am. Back in this weird, wonderful city we call Tangér, Tanja, Tangier.

I can't believe that I almost forgot how much I love this place. In less than twenty minutes you can walk through the busy bustling medina, through the markets, through the maze of the Kasbah, and suddenly you walk through an archway and the portal takes you to out onto a stunning view of the bright blue sea, sailing beyond colorful patchwork rooftops.

Mini Flourless Chocolate Cakes

I have been in Berlin a little bit over a month now, and to be completely honest, I still don't know what I'm doing. I keep getting all inside my head and worrying about the future and my career and silly things like that, when really, all I need to do is stop and look around.