Tag Archives: foodie

The little tiny Holiday cookies

Christmas and New Year are definitely my favourite holidays. Hustle and bustle time. Snowing outside, everybody is in rush, searching presents and gifts for the loved ones. Unfortunately in the UAE I can’t feel such wonderful emotions in full, but I can bring the festive mood and flavours to my home by baking some winter treats.

These little cookies are so rich in chocolate, that could give little more warmth for the family tea-time. Adding some spices-cloves, cinnamon or cardamom and a small hazelnut or pistachio inside is also great! 😉

And if you pack them in a little Xmas box – it might be amazing gift for a friend.

I’m pretty sure that better to double the amount of the ingredients, so you don’t need to cook it twice!

Ingredients:

1 egg

50g/2 Tbsps sugar

60g dark chocolate (60-70% cacao)

100g/4-5 tbsp flour

1 Tbsp butter

Icing sugar – to cover the cookies

Method

Melt the chocolate and butter together in a bowl under the simmering water, gently stir.

Whisk the egg and sugar together in another bowl until light and fluffy.

Carefully fold in the chocolate mixture, then add the flour and combine.

Scoop the cookie batter with a teaspoon, shape small balls and roll them in plate with icing sugar.

Place on a baking tray and bake for 9-10 minutes in a preheated oven 180C/360F.

Enjoy the holiday! 😀

Apple pie with semolina

There are so many things I love about autumn!

Chose a day in our rush-life-time and stop! Stop and look around! You could see many bright colors, that golden fall has brought for you. Browny-orange and fiery red leaves are falling from trees. Gloomy and gray sky. Breeze in! Cooling and lightly burning air.

What an amazing day to bake a warm apple pie! 🙂

Ingredients:

Apples (pink lady) 3

Cottage cheese 100-150g (1/2-2/3 cups)

A handful of raisins, optionally

Butter 50-70g (4-5 Tbsp), melted

Semolina 150g (1 cup)

Flour 2Tbsp

Egg 1

Sugar 100g (1/2cup), I used brown

Cinnamon 1/2 tsp, optionally

Baking soda 1tsp

Bread crumbs or crushed nuts (hazelnuts, almonds) 1-2Tbsp, optionally

I forget to put soda in the pie mixture sometimes, so don’t worry if you’ve done the same, the pie will be nice and tasty anyway! 😉

Using fine semolina makes the pie more fluffy, however, I used that time coarse-grained and the pie was none the worse.;)

Feel free to change a quantity of the ingredients to suit your own taste.

Method:

Slice the apples, sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon.

Meanwhile, combine cottage cheese and egg. Add semolina, flour, soda and melted butter, mix.

Add apples, raisins and carefully combine.

Butter the baking pan, sprinkle some bread crumbles or crushed nuts, add the apple mixture.

Bake until golden color for 30-40 minutes. 200C/400F

Enjoy!!! 😀

Russian kasha

Kasha means porridge. One Russian proverb says “Bread and Porridge is our food”. A pot with a porridge and bread were the main food on a table many years back. A large varieties of cereals are produced in Russia, but the popular and loved one has been the buckweat.

According to old Russian tradition, during the wedding a bridegroom and a bride had to cook a porridge together. If they could cooked a good, tasty porridge that meant they could get on with each other. A porridge was cooked for many occasions like a wedding or Christmas feast, birth or funeral repast. Sometimes a feast was called ‘kasha’. Every hostess had a personal recipe of porridge, which she kept in a secret.

In Russian cuisine a porridge is divided into 3 groups by it’s consistency: liquid (eaten as a soup), oozy (usually for children) and crumbly (the tastiest one). The consistency depends on a quantity of water or milk, in which porridge was cooked.

Millet porridge with butter or lard added was the common meal for Russian labors, who had worked in fields. It’s can be eaten sweet (with sugar, honey, dried fruits) or savoury (with onion, garlic, mushrooms), as a main dish or garnish.

Moreover, millet is rich in calcium, B vitamins, iron, potassium, and contain no gluten.

We need: