How to wrap your cookies

No recipes today, just an idea about how to wrap your cookies as a gift. Buy some cheap plastic glasses (I got some martini glasses), put a nice napkin in and fill it with your delicious homemade biscuits. 

Christmas trees

Ingredients:

flour 300 gr
butter 200 gr
sugar 50 gr
vanilla sugar 2 spoons
1 egg yolk
1/2 envelop baking powder

jam




Make a smooth dough mixing first the butter (soften it first) and both types of sugar. Edd the egg yolk and slowly add the flour. Roll the dough 5 mm thin and cut them with the cookie cutter. Half of them cut in the middle with a smaller cutter of the same shape.
Bake them in a preheated oven on 180°C for 10-15 minutes.
Let them cool and then spread the jam you prefer on the cookies and put the cookie with the hole on the top.
If you want, you can add some sugar ice on the top, but they work without it as well.
Make them as a gift or offer them to your guests.

Spelt with porcini mushrooms

What about a healthy fall meal? Here is an idea.

Ingredients (2 people):

250 gr spelt
100 gr dry porcini mushroom
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
pepper
salt
nutmeg
olive oil





Chop the onion and garlic and fry it in a pan with some olive oil. Add porcini mushrooms that you soaked in some water for about 30 minutes. Add spelt and mix well. Slowly cook and add salt, pepper and nutmeg. Continue to stir until the spelt is ready (about 25 minutes approximately). A tip: if you soak the spelt in water before cooking it, it cooks faster.

Coconut kisses

Ingredients:
3 egg whites
200 gr sugar
1 vanilla sugar
30 gr cocoa powder
150 gr dry coconut









Mix the egg whites until they are thick. Slowly add sugar and vanilla sugar. At the end gently mix and add cocoa powder and coconut. Put the dough with a teaspoon on the baking tray and bake in a preheated oven (140-160° C) for about 25 minutes. Cool the biscuits.

Pasta with zucchini and philadelphia

Ingredients (4 persons):

2 zucchini

400 gr of pasta

garlic powder

chili powder

white pepper powder

salt

olive oil

100 gr of philadelphia

Slice the zucchini and fry them in a pan on olive oil. Add a pinch of salt, pepper, garlic and chili and mix well. Continue to stir. After 10-15 minutes add 2 tablespoons of water and cover the pan with zucchini. In the meantime cook the type of pasta you prefer. After 10 minutes take away the cover from the zucchini and continue to cook a few more minutes until you have no water left. Put the cooked zucchini on the pasta and add philadelphia cheese. Mix well and serve still hot. 

Risotto with leek and philadelphia

Here is my new experiment. Actually I've tried it at my friend's student house first, but I didn't have my camera with me at that time, so the recipe had to wait a few more weeks before it was posted here. 

Ingredients:

rice (1 cup per person)

onion (1)

leek (1)

olive oil

philadelphia (2-3 spoons)

salt 

pepper

chili powder

Chop the leek and the onion and fry it in a pan with some olive oil. Add the rice and mix for a minute. Cover with some water and add salt, pepper and chili powder. Mix well. Continue to cook until the rice is done. At the end add a few spoons of filadelfia and mix well. Easy, right? And the taste is wonderful. 

Indian potatoes

That's a recipe that my friend Darshana taught me when I lived in India. It's easy to make and it does taste really good.

Ingredients: 

potatoes 

oil

onion

salt

pepper

chili powder

mustard seeds

turmeric powder 

water

Boil the potatoes with the skin. Chop the onion and fry it in a pan with a little bit of oil. Add the potatoes cut in cubes and add salt, pepper and the other spices. Mix well, add some water and cook for some time. You can eat it with some chapati.