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Oatmeal Cookies with dates

There are thousands recipes of oatmeal cookies, I guess. Needless to say, I prefer homemade cookies to store-bought. Homemade is homemade, right? Plus I can vary the amount of sugar, thus you can feel that you’re eating oat cookies, not sugary cookies with oats! And of course, you can add your fav nuts or chocolate chips as much as you like. 😀 Personally, I don’t like chocolate chips in cookies. I add it sometimes too, but almost never do it; choco chips contain more sugar than pure chocolate; so if I deliberately reduce the sugar in a recipe why should I add more sugar but in another form.. I prefer roughly chopped dark chocolate, it’s healthier and adds much more flavour and taste! Add a small handful of dried berries or fruits for extra deliciousness! 🙂

So, it’s my fav oatmeal cookies recipe. What’s yours? 🙂

Oatmeal Cookies with dates

Servings: 20-22 cookies
Time: 20-30mins
Difficulty: easy
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Instead of dates you can add some black raisins or dried cherries.

Addition of chopped dark chocolate make cookies only better.

Ingredients

170g butter, soft at room temperature

35g brown sugar

35g golden caster sugar (or more brown sugar)

1 large egg, at room temperature

1 tsp vanilla extract

50g plain flour

50g fine oats

1/2 tsp fine salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2-1 tsp cinnamon

a pinch of freshly grated nutmeg

200-220g oats

80-100g roasted walnuts, roughly chopped

6-8 large dates, stoned and chopped

Method

In a bowl, whisk flour with fine oats, salt, baking powder and spices.
In a large mixing bowl, beat butter with sugars until creamy about 2 minutes. Beat in egg and vanilla.
Add flour mixture into cookie batter and whisk/beat until combined.
Stir in oats, walnuts and dates.
Line 2 baking trays with parchment. Scoop in cookies, leaving the space between cookies about 4-5cm. With wet hand flatten the cookies slightly.
Bake in preheated 180C oven for 15 minutes or until light golden.

Enjoy with a glass of cold milk!

Cauliflower couscous with shrimps

When I saw a cauliflower couscous recipe for a first time in a food magazine I didn’t pay much attention to it and dismissed it, and made another pan of creamy cauli soup. 🙂 But when I stumbled upon similar recipes again and again, I decided to give it a chance.

I red few recipes to know how to make a cauliflower couscous: the main thing is to pulse cauliflower florets in a food processor to get tiny bits, which reminds couscous grains and then you can mix it up with any your favourite ingredients. Thus, I came up with my own recipe. Even thou, I topped cauli couscous with shrimps, you may omit it and keep totally vegetarian. Whatever you choose, this dish is full of flavour! It’s a good alternative for a regular couscous, and especially for people with gluten sensitivity. Such couscous pairs well with roasted chicken or barbecued meat as well.

And you know what, now it’s my fav way to prepare cauliflower! When I served it for a dinner my husband couldn’t guess what was that – whether pasta or couscous, but he liked it. Because it tasted divine: buttery and aromatic! 🙂

Cauliflower couscous with shrimps

Servings: 2
Time: 20mins
Difficulty: easy
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You can also try to add: chopped walnuts or pistachios, raisins, goji berries, chickpeas..

Ingredients

Cauli’couscous

cauliflower 400g

baby onion 5-7, sliced

1 garlic clove, chopped, optinal

olive oil 1 tbsp+ butter 1 tbsp, for frying

lemon juice 1 tbsp

sea salt, black&white pepper to taste

chopped mint 1 tbsp

chopped parsley 1 tbsp

olives 6-7, stoned

extra virgin olive oil, for dressing

roasted slivered or flaked almonds 2 tbsp

Shrimps

medium shrimps 10 (or more if shrimps are small), cleaned

lemon juice 2 tbsp

1/3-1/2 tsp chilli flakes, optional

1 tsp sweet paprika

freshly ground sea salt and white pepper to taste

olive oil 2 tbsp, for frying

Method

Mix up all ingredients for shrimps marinade. Put shrimps in a bowl, pour over marinade. Cover with plastic wrap and keep in a fridge at least for 1 hour.
Wash and roughly cut cauliflower. Using a food processor, blitz cauliflower until breadcrumbs/couscous size.
In a frying pan, heat oil and butter. Add whole baby onions and fry over medium heat until golden. Add cauliflower and garlic if using, fry for 10-15 minutes or until cauliflower is ready. Add lemon juice and season to taste. Stir in chopped herbs and olives.
In a separate pan heat oil and fry shrimps for 2-3 minutes on each side over medium-high heat.
Arrange cauliflower couscous on a large serving plate. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with almonds. Top with shrimps.

Enjoy!

Sunday Breakfast: Cheesy Onion Cookies

Hello-hello! It’s been a kind of hectic week and I really didn’t have a time to post anything. But I can’t skip the Sunday breakfast series, so I decided to reblog one of my old recipes – savory onion cookies! I love this recipe: it’s quick&easy what especially valuable in the morning (ok, may be not that quick as a fried egg but worth any minute), and of course these cookies taste incredible! So, if you still haven’t tried them, click here to get the recipe. 🙂 These savory cookies combine many amazing ingredients, like a classic English cheese – Red Leicester or Cheddar, that adds a slightly sweet and nutty note to cookies, plus sautéed in butter leeks and some chilli flakes, which give you a nice and healthy jump start! 🙂 Enjoy!

Radish-Cucumber salad

Many of you already greeted the autumn season and began to bake various apple pies and cook hearty dishes. Autumn signs have been also trickling into Dubai, but slowly and it is still summer-like days here with plenty of strong sunshine during the day-time. Mornings and days, though still warm and sunny as usual, have been followed by lovely and cool evenings. Despite of all hot days, it’s a big advantage of living near the Gulf: we can enjoy the sea and sand any time over the year long. That’s what we did one afternoon – went to a beach. But before the joy of swimming in the sea, I prepared a very simple, light and fresh, and crunchy salad. It needs only few ingredients including beautiful radishes, which I found at local supermarket and just couldn’t resist picking up a huge bunch.

As you can see, the recipe is V-E-R-Y simple: all you need is love, fresh sliced cucumbers and bright radishes, chopped spring onions, some seasoning and sour cream!

I like this salad. It reminds me summer holidays: staying at parents house, fun of gardening and eating lots of fresh veggies and berries. And for that reason I decided to mix up vegetable slices with traditional Russian dressing – sour cream, instead of olive oil. Simple and well-loved. Be generous with spring onion! You may also add some chopped dill, if you wish.

Radish-Cucumber salad (with sour cream dressing)

Don’t be sad if the summer is over in your place, I will post autumn recipes soon {more pie recipes are on the way..} Thanks for reading and Stay turned! 🙂

Sunday Breakfast: Zaatar fried egg

Good morning to you my dear reader! I have an intriguing question for you this lovely Sunday morning – what time are you awake on weekends? Is it 6am or 11am? Today I had a special fitness morning. Firstly, I wake up early today: at 8am (yes, it is early for me), went to a nice and energetic pilates class, which is really made my day. Afterwards, I was so hungry and in need of something extremely tasty and healthy!

I fell in love with zaatar (it’s a mix of dried spices) since I moved to Dubai. I can’t remember how or when I tried it for the first time, but once I tried this incredible mixture, it remains my favourite Middle Eastern spice ever since. As my husband says: “you can eat anything with zaatar”. 😀 it’s funny but true. You can prepare many dishes using zaatar, like eggplant wedges with it and pomegranate molasses or delicious roasted salmon steaks, or anything else you like.

All you need for today is an egg and zaatar! A slice of wurzel or sourdough bread, some olives and feta could make your breakfast more complete and nourishing. Hope this bright and simple meal satisfy your taste buds! 😉

Zaatar friedd egg on a slice of wurzel bread

Zaatar fried egg

Servings: 1
Time: 10mins
Difficulty: very easy
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Ingredients

1 or 2 large eggs, at room temperature

1 tbsp olive oil, for frying

1 tsp dry zaatar spice mix (per egg)

salt, pepper to taste

1 slice of wurzel or sourdough bread

1 tbsp olives (preferably in olive oil)

1 tbsp feta cheese

few cherry tomatoes, optional

Heat oil in a frying pan on a medium-high heat, crack an egg, season with salt, pepper, then sprinkle with zaatar and fry for a couple of minutes.
Meanwhile, toast the bread or put it under the grill for a minute.
Arrange bread on a serving plate, carefully transfer the fried egg on the toast. Top with olives and crumbled feta.
Serve immediately with fresh cherry tomatoes. Sprinkle with extra zaatar, if you like.