Last week, in a phone call at midnight, my boss told me he wanted me to come back to Australia as soon as possible for work. Our flights are booked for next week, leaving just over a week to get everything sorted out. And part of getting things sorted out is to figure out what to do with all the food we have in the house. My husband had just bought a whole pile of peanut butter (sometimes we don’t get the brand I like for over 3 months in Chile), and I had some other stuff I had brought back from the US that I hadn’t had time to use as yet. So, I’ve been on a bit of a baking frenzy … and eating lots too!
As usual, you can click on the photos and it will take you to the recipe I used (hopefully!). Enjoy!
 We had some white cooking chocolate (that Abby absolutely loves more than normal eating white chocolate, for some reason), that had gotten some gluten on it from when Abby had picked it up just after eating a bread roll. I wanted to use it up so I wouldn’t get sick if I ate it, and turned to an ol’ faithful chocolate chip recipe passed down from my mother. It was really hard not to lick the beaters, or taste the dough, to make sure the cookies were ok, but apparently the kids, and their classmates, all enjoyed them immensely! |
 I tried making this recipe at Christmas time with my mum, but accidentally bought some gluten-containing polenta for the cornmeal in it. Also couldn’t find any real fruit mince-meat in Australia. I had a jar of fruit mince-meat I bought in the US that I didn’t want to have to transport back to Australia, so I got out this recipe and made it. Close to Easter, yes, but maybe I’ll make some hot-cross buns around Christmas-time this year! |
 We had a friend over for lunch a week or so ago (hi Graham) who is a vegetarian. I made the arepas with chicken and other stuff for our family, but cooked up some chickpeas for him. And then I had some leftover cooked chickpeas lying around. So, I decided to make my really yummy chickepa peanut butter chocolate chip cookies and take them to church. I think the kids got to them first as the service went a little longer than expected – I don’t know if they were aware they contained chickpeas, but all the cookies went really quickly! |
 Couldn’t leave Chile without making my ultimate peanut butter slice again. Oh yeah, it was to share the awesomeness with my family, since they didn’t get to experience it when I made it in Australia recently. And to use up the peanut butter, and cooking chocolate. But I have to admit, it was worth it … and I ate lots while cutting it into pieces to take into the office – had to eat all the ones that didn’t look right! |
 I wanted to use up the rest of the cornmeal that I used for the arepas and the mince pies and also had some lemon juice left over from our lemon trees in the backyard. And every time I’ve made this recipe I’ve wanted to try it as cupcakes. So this was my opportunity! They taste really great, just out of the freezer – drats, can’t keep things in the freezer to make them last longer any more, they just taste too good! |
 Yep, these were the cookies I made for the base of my ultimate chocolate peanut butter slice. And since I only made a half recipe of the slice, I had leftover cookies. Using brown sugar again, nice and soft and chewy, but for some reason, also a little dry this time. Not sure what I did differently. But still good to eat! |
 A great recipe to use up some crunchy peanut butter, some creamy peanut butter and raisins. And that’s about all there is to this recipe! You could tell they were the ‘healthier’ version, but still not too bad. I served these to the youth group at our place over the weekend and I don’t think they lasted more than about 10 minutes on the table! |
So, we’ve only got a little bit of peanut butter left, and the rest of the baking ingredients will be given away to whoever we can think of! This is it for me cooking in Chile, kind of sad in a way, but also looking forward to the opportunities of new ingredients being available in Australia.
Until next time, enjoy cooking at home … wherever your home may be.
Sarah