When we moved back to Colorado, almost 3 years ago now, it was a hurried, stressful move. My husband’s work wanted him to relocate to Denver but wouldn’t hurry up and give us any information whether the relocation was approved or not. So there I was frustrated and anxious about whether I was supposed to pack up a 5 bedroom house or not.

Finally the word trickled down from the upper management and everything was a go, but they wanted him there the following week! I was in meltdown mode at that point. We had a week to find a place in Denver, rush back to Houston and pack up the house, find time to shock the family with the move, drive two cars up to Denver plus the moving truck. Thinking back on it now, I just don’t know where I found the energy. I single handedly packed up my house because my husband was in Denver and only flew down for two days to load the truck and drive it up.

We sold our house in Houston, a house where I had picked out everything and had my granite kitchen island, my fancy back splash and pendant lights, where I had rooms for everyone and everything; I packed it up in 5 days and left.

We ended up stumbling across this home we’re in now, quite by accident. We had less than a week to find a place to live. My husband and I had driven up in my car to find a place to live and for him to start work. We had a hopeless time of it, no one called us back and the rental homes we did see were just awful. At this point, I was totally discouraged and was questioning and second guessing this move.

We happened across this house and though it was in a state, it had the rooms we needed. The landlord informed us that the tenants had left in the middle of the night and broken the lease. Apparently, these ne’er do wells, were growing marijuana in the basement and a few days before, the police had raided the place. When we saw the house, the windows were broken, doors off the hinges and lots of happy leaves on the basement floor (plants however were all gone). Even though the house was in a terrible state, the landlord assured us that he could have it ready by the time we moved up, and after I saw the view of the mountains from the master bedroom balcony, I was sold.

We had promised ourselves that we wouldn’t move again until we were ready to buy again and we don’t want to buy quite yet. Of course, the landlords want to sell the house. So, guess what we are doing next week? I am not looking forward to it. I just hate packing and moving and unpacking and trying to settle in again, it’s all such a headache. To make matters worse, the house we are moving into has a very small kitchen :(. I had to sacrifice my kitchen to get more living areas.

I am quite sure I will be MIA for a few days until I get my internet going and such, but please think of me and send me some happy thoughts! I am so going to need them.

What I will also need, are a lot of sweet things to get me through the stress. Things like these delicious, brown butter, white chocolate and pecan cookies, that I made a couple of weeks ago. I find that I don’t bake many cookies because I am always baking something else, but I do like cookies, especially with a cappuccino or latte. The children were asking for cookies so I made some time to bake some for them. Of course, I had to experiment a bit and this experiment turned out so well! The cookies had an amazing toffee, butterscotch-y taste and the white chocolate added just the right amount of sweetness. They were quite lovely and lasted a day at our house!

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Brown Butter, White Chocolate and Pecan Cookies

Cook time:  15 mins

Total time:  1 hour 15 mins

Serves: 30-36 cookies

Ingredients

• 2¼ cups/350g plain/all purpose flour
• ¾ cup/165g granulated sugar
• ¾ cup/170g brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups/340g white chocolate chips
• 1 cup/100g chopped pecans
• 2 sticks/227g butter
• 2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 375℉/190℃ (if baking right away)
2. Line a couple of baking sheets with parchment paper or liners and set aside.
3. To make the brown butter, place the butter in a small stainless steel saucepan and put on low heat.
4. Slowly melt the butter and allow it to cook further until the butter solids are turning golden brown.
   
5. Be careful because if you raise the heat too much, the butter can burn suddenly.
6. Once the butter is nicely brown and fragrant, set aside to cool.
7. Mix the flour, baking soda and salt together in a bowl.
8. In a mixer or with a hand mixer, beat the eggs until pale and thick.
9. Add the sugars and beat until combined, pale and thick.
   
10. Add the vanilla extract.
11. Add the flour mixture and mix gently.
12. Add the browned butter (I didn't strain the milk solids, they add a nice toffee taste) and mix through.
13. Add the pecan pieces and white chocolate chips and fold through until evenly distributed.
14. Chill in the fridge for about 10 minutes, at least.
15. Using a cookie scoop, scoop out the cookie dough and place on the prepared baking sheets.
16. Allow for room to spread, about 2"/5 cm apart.
    
17. Bake in the centre of the oven for 11-13 minutes, until golden around the edges.
18. Cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes and then remove from the baking sheet onto a rack to cool.

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As we are talking about cookies today, I want to take a moment and tell you about a wonderful coffee festival going on in the UK. Of course, this will be for my UK readers, but if any of you are visiting the UK this summer maybe you can swing by and check it out. The good folks organising the festival asked me include a link for their site and I said since it’s about coffee, and I LOVE coffee, that I would give them a shout out.

The Chorlton Coffee Festival is taking place in Chorlton (NW UK) June 28th-30th. Check out their website for more information.

Have a great week everyone. I hope to keep in touch in the coming weeks, just wish me luck.