Hi friends! Happy first weekend of summer. I’ve got some delicious chewy chocolate chip cookies for you, with gooey milk chocolate and chewy toffee bits. I have booked a babysitter for the whole day tomorrow so Adarsh and I can have some time together and do grown-up things like go for a bike ride and go watch The Incredibles. Wait.
First, I would like to walk you through a day in our last weekend.
(5:46 a.m.) Everett, two years old: MORNING TIME! Mama look, mama LOOK! *cackles* mama me naken (his clothes and diaper are gone as he climbs all over me). I rub my eyes, grunt, and reluctantly pad downstairs to make Fathers Day brunch, a South Indian breakfast of sambhar (lentil and vegetable stew) and dosa (rice pancakes).
Everett: Me want wallawellon. (Takes off at a clip, hangs off of fridge door until it opens, de-shelves everything within reach and helps himself to watermelon before I even reach the kitchen).
Everett: Me want ganana (takes banana, eats one bite, abandons banana).
Everett: Me want to stir that (eyes my bowl of crepe batter, grabs the bowl of crepe batter, ACHOO ACHOOOOOOOOOOO; sneezes twice in the bowl of crepe batter.) Me need Tylenol.
(Wanders off.)
Everett: AAAAAAH! AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! (Ear-splitting screams from living room.)
I drop the bowl, go screeching around the corner.
Me: What’s wrong??? (Panicked eyes searching for the source of blood and/or bodily agony.)
Everett: (With a yawn) Me cold. (He’s still naked, and super relaxed in the oversized fabric bean bag chair). Put my clothes on.
(Pause.)
E: Uh oh.
Me: What?! (Still jumpy from the momentary belief that accidental amputation had occurred.)
E: Me peed.
(Wanders off again, this time walking with legs wide apart.)
I leave the mess and sit down to drink my coffee and recover from the surge of fight or flight hormones (caffeine helps with that, right?) while the sambhar bubbles fragrantly. I wearily survey the graveyard of watermelon rinds and banana peels that is my kitchen. Everett climbs sweetly on my lap. I sigh, kiss his curls, and forgive him as I sip my coffee and receive a hard headbutt in the face. (My nose may now permanently point a bit toward East.)
Dada comes down.
Me: Happy Father’s Day, babe. (Totally haggard).
Everett: Happy Halloween. (Totally cheerful).
That, friends, is a totally average morning before 8 am for me, and is why I will be doing cartwheels out the door tomorrow.
But before that, I’m making another batch of these Skor bars in cookie incarnation and heading to a neighbour’s house for a drink on her patio this evening. I have been so humbled by the hospitality in my new neighbourhood.
This gal is one I met for 3 minutes while walking home one day – our kids are the same age so we exchanged numbers, and she invited me over to a girls’ night tonight. I am so touched by that kind of openness.
I wrote about the art of “doing” on my Instagram this week. How often I find myself wasting precious hours of my workday on “research”. I use quotes because although finding inspiration is important, it’s easy to fall into the habit of just scrolling and not doing.
I say, let’s take a break from consuming content and start CREATING it. Step away from Pinterest and make a recipe you’ve pinned. Back away from the photography inspo, pick up your camera and just chase the gooey drips. Pull the trigger and book an AirBnB. Exit the Goodreads app and grab a book. Book a sitter and go for a bike ride. Text your neighbours and invite them over for a glass of wine.
Let’s make this a summer of doing, because there’s never a perfect time for any of those things. Motivation only follows action. Are you in this with me?
Toffee & Milk Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 2 cups gently spooned into cup & levelled off + 2 tbsp all purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 cup butter softened
- ¾ cup brown sugar packed
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 1 egg
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 cups chopped good quality milk chocolate
- ¾ cup toffee bits divided use
- In a medium bowl whisk together flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
Instructions
- Combine butter and sugars in the bowl of a stand mixer. Beat on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in egg and vanilla extract. Reduce mixer speed to low and gradually incorporate flour mixture, then toffee and chocolate.
- Refrigerate dough for 30 minutes (or up to 48 hours). Meanwhile, preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Drop dough by tablespoonfuls onto parchment-lined rimless baking sheets 2? apart. Sprinkle with remaining toffee bits. Bake about 10 minutes, rotating sheet halfway through. Cookies are done when golden and still soft in the middle.
