Triple Chocolate Cookies

Isobel is obsessed with animals, she loves them very much. On Sunday she wanted to go to the Animal Aid shelter in Coldstream, just to look as we are not in a position to adopt at this stage. I got Philip to drop me and Spencer off at the Yarra Valley Dairy while he took Isobel to the shelter. I was hoping because it was such a cold and wet day that no one bothered to venture out, but I was wrong. We had to wait a little while for a table, so I did some cheese and wine tasting, looked around at the products you can buy and picked up a pack of Yarra Valley Crumbs Gourmet Biscuits, Triple Chocolate. Funnily enough Spencer wasn't interested in the cheese and wine tasting so I bought the pack of biscuits while we waited.

I hadn't be to the Yarra Valley Dairy for quite some time and while they still do their fabulous cheese platters, meals seem to be a thing of the past. I ordered the cheese platter and a glass of wine. The cheese platter was huge, but oh so delicious!

This was after much of the cheese had been consumed. It came with a lovely selection of breads and crackers and included an onion relish. Goats cheese is a favourite of mine and I had plenty, thankfully Philip and Isobel arrived so he could help with the cheese.

Isobel spotted the the biscuits and started to rave about how good they were. Spencer had put a half eaten biscuit pack in the pack so Philip polished it off and also raved about what great biscuits they were. I believe that when it comes to biscuits/cookies, nothing is as good as home made. Much later in the day I had one to see if they really were as good as they said. They were nice, but as I said, not as good as home made.

To prove my point I decided that on the first day of the school holidays I would make my own Triple Chocolate Cookies. It was complete pot luck when choosing the recipe, I Googled and chose to make the first ones that came up, which was this one from Taste. I had all the ingredients required, so went ahead and made them. The recipe says it makes 30 and it probably does if you make them slightly smaller than I did, I made about 25.

Isobel told me they were the 'best cookies ever!' and were clearly better than the bought ones. I think Spencer was being cheeky when he told me that the other ones were better. After dinner Philip got himself a couple of cookies for dessert, he said, in a surprised tone, that they were very good. I said to him, 'I told you I could make better than bought', he didn't deny it. :)

Risotto with Roast Pumpkin, Spinach, Sun Dried Tomatoes and Fetta

Once a month Philip and I get to go out to dinner, without the kids, lucky us! Considering how often we used to go out for dinner pre kids, I still find it hard to be somewhat restricted to once a month. However, my sister, Amber, is kind enough to come over with her boys and look after Isobel and Spencer. I make dinner for them before we go out and it was usually pizza, but recently Amber had taken a liking to a risotto she had as a take away from Deganis, so I did my best to recreate it.

I used this Donna Hay Basic Baked Risotto recipe and added roasted pumpkin (about 600g) , a couple of handfuls of baby spinach, about 8 sun dried tomatoes (cut in half)  and about 100g of fetta.
I think they were happy with the result.