Rose water cookies

Well, hello there!


I know, I know... It has been literally ages since I blogged about something, but life sometimes can be overwhelming. Sometimes in good ways, sometimes in ways that nobody should be conscious while going through some things.


Spring is in the air, the flower scents make my heart sing and I bake. Lately, a lot. At times I bake because I feel sad, other times I bake because I feel like to terrorize the world with cookies and hugs.
Today's baking was one of the later ones, where I want to conquer the world with cookies and I strongly believe that these cookies can literally stop the world from spinning, at least for a split second.


I won't be going with my rant for too long, as you might skip reading the recipe, so here we go:


For approximately 18-20 cookies you will need:

96 grams all purpose flour

30 grams ground almonds

85 grams butter (room temperature)

96 grams icing sugar (sifted)

¼ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon vanilla essence

1 tablespoon rose water

1 large egg (room temperature)

About 50 grams icing sugar (sifted) for dusting

 

Method:

 

Sift the flour and almond meal in a bowl and set aside.

In a separate bowl, beat the butter with electric whisk until pale (about 2 minutes on medium speed). Add the sugar, salt, vanilla & rose water and beat on medium speed for about a minute, until amalgamated well.

Add the egg and beat about 15-20 seconds. Do not over-beat, as you’ll end up with tough cookies. (No pun intended).

On low speed, add the flour mixture and mix well until just incorporated. About a minute or so should do the trick.

Wrap the dough in cling film and let it chill in the fridge for 30-40 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees Celsius and put the rack in the lower third of the oven.

With floured hands pinch small balls of dough, roll them gently between your palms and place them on a cookie sheet lined with baking paper or a silicone mat.

Space the dough balls about inch apart and bake the cookies 10-13 minutes (depending on the strength of the oven), or until golden circle appears around the outer edge.

As soon as you remove them from the oven, cover with sifted icing sugar and gently pull the lining paper/silicone mat, letting them cool completely on a wire rack.

Let them cool about 40 minutes and then the face stuffing feast can begin! Just in case you have some leftover from the face stuffing feast, you can keep the cookies in airtight container on room temperature for up to 3 days.

 

In the name of god!

Couple of months ago, someone asked me why I'm not following organized religion. The person that asked me that is deeply religious which is fine by me. 
I'm not a hater.
You see, I have my own values or quirks, or call them what you will. How I could belong to a group that preaches one thing and then does other? If I cannot follow something to the 'T', I might as well not even do it. I personally believe that you cannot just pick whatever suits you from the religion/faith and then chuck the rest. Or you do it, or you don't.
Being somewhat uncomfortable with gray areas and preferring the predictability of black and white, I'm not a suitable candidate to be a 'follower'. (The way I see it, you can't say that you're this or that and then start hating. If love is one of the fundamental pillars in most religions, how come the hate gets center stage?)
Why?
Because, I do believe in a free will for one. 
Because I cannot grasp the concept of having this all loving god who can punish you. If god's grace is cast upon everyone, why the need to belong to an 'elite' club of followers?
Because I ask questions. Too many questions. Questions that are bound to make the 'people of the cloth' uncomfortable and unable to answer.
Because of my ability to think with my own head, rather than take someones word for it.
No, definitely I'm not a follower material.
I admire and respect the dedication and faith of all faithful, but I steer clear from the stuff. 
The thing that I have to admit though, is that I am curious about all religions, but I cannot stand the competition of the sort 'mine is better than yours'.
Someone smart, somewhere had said that if you want to be respected, you have to give your respect. (It is one of the reasons that I can have great time with believers and non-believers alike).
However, the thing that bothers me most is not religion itself, let me tell you. Religion as such is a good thing, but the interpretations of the teachings are completely different story. There I have the problem.
While an individual with a little bit of common sense would pause, reflect and question, the 'blind followers' mess up everything. They start going on rampages against individuals who are different than themselves, groups or associations which hold different perspective of things and the list goes from bad to worse from here on.
So, in the name of (your) god, please don't try to 'convert' me. I am very comfortable with my choices or the lack of thereof, and prefer to believe that ultimately, it is your choices and actions that you will be remembered for.

Peace and light to all!

Pasta with broccoli, chicken and blue cheese sauce

This one is short and sweet. I've been neglecting my blog for some time now, but this one was too good not to share.

To feed 2-3 people, you will need:

250 grams of fresh pasta (you can use the dried variety, but the fresh pasta has distinctive flavor)
1 cup of fresh cream 
1/2 cup chicken or vegetable stock (you can use water too, but you'll need to adjust the seasoning)
2 heaped tablespoons crumbled blue cheese (I used Gorgonzola dolce latte)
1 heaped tablespoons grated Parmesan
1 cooked (steamed or grilled) chicken breast, diced
couple of cooked broccoli florets (about 3-4 per person)


Method:
You'll have to work quick on this one, as it doesn't take too long. Cook the pasta according to packet instructions and drain into a colander.

Combine the cream, chicken stock and the cheeses in a saucepan and heat on medium heat. Do not let it boil. When it comes to a gentle bubble, add the previously cooked chicken and broccoli and give a light stir. Remove from fire and toss into the cooked pasta. Ground some mixed or black pepper and enjoy with a glass of white wine.

The Tree of Life (a bad, bad movie)

OK, let me make it clear from the beginning. I’m not a hater, and especially when it comes to movies, I have found that my tolerance to poorly executed movies is very generous. However, there’s limit to everything.

I have my own criteria about movies:

1. Movies that I can watch all day long on a loop

2. Movies that I want to see every now and then

3. Movies that I’ve seen and forgot all about them

4. Movies that I wish I had never seen

So, yesterday I saw ‘The Three Musketeers’ (2011) and I admit, it had some awesome, pretty nice butt kicking scenes. While Mila Jovovich, Luke Evans and Christoph Waltz were successfully cast in the roles of Milady de Winter, Aramis and Cardinal Richelieu, the rest of the cast was pretty much miscast. Still, the movie wasn’t bad. However, this post is about another movie… the one I wish I never watched. Yes, it was THAT bad.

Thinking that after my ‘encounter’ with ‘The Tree Musketeers’ I’ll have some more luck in watching another good movie, I went to the DVD shop and rented ‘The Tree of Life.’ No, they should have called it ‘The THREE of Life’ as it took 181 minutes of my life that I’m never getting back. Ever. In those 3 hours I could have made a batch of pancakes or even baked a cake, but no, I decided to watch the movie.

Now, I have somewhat of a ‘rule’ or rather is a mechanism of defence when it comes to suck-y movies: If I have difficulty looking at the screen after the 7th minute is gone, the movie is not worth watching. This ‘sixth sense’ of mine never failed me, but still, in order to proclaim the movie a total waste of time, I stick watching. Eh, the things I do in order to prevent more ‘victims’ from watching lousy stuff!

It is not my intention to bore you with the details, so I’m going to sum it pretty fast.

1. If you want scenes of erupting volcanoes, dirty waterfalls and unusually shaped rocks, turn your TV to National Geographic or Discovery channel. At least, you learn something from there, which cannot be said about the above mentioned movie.

2. Damaged people breed damaged children (or as I want to put it in my favourite words: ‘Stupid breeds stupid’). People with seriously unresolved issues only ‘transfer’ their issues to their children, thus leaving them scarred for life and in need of some serious professional help. It is the shrink or jail basically. If one doesn’t act on those issues, they end up hurting themselves, or worse, hurting other people and ending up in ‘the can’.

3. It is useless calling on deities to explain and answer your question. When dealing with the mundane choices and their consequences, guess what?! You have to question your own choices rather than asking/blaming deities for your misfortunes.

Now, that I have nicely summed it up for you, I have trouble understanding how this movie ended up with ‘Palme D’ Or’ in Cannes. I suspect that the judges have been heavily drugged, bribed or even plainly stupid to give that award to the movie. I can go all artsy-fartsy if I wanted to, and say that the movie left me breathless and it was a work of art, but that would be just bollocking myself and the ones who read this page. (And no, I don’t like Picasso either).

Every now and then, it comes a director that is labelled ‘visionary’, but this is not the case with Terrence Malick and ‘The T(h)ree of life’.

So, after reading this, if you still have 3 hours of your life to waste and come to the same conclusions, please do come back and comment, so I can rub it in and say ‘I informed you thusly, oh I so informed you thusly!’

Of educational values, unbearable heat and different kinds of food

Well, hello. I haven't been blogging (cooking) lately, as everyone who knows me, also knows that I don't spend much time in the kitchen in summer. There are few simple reasons for that, but the main reason is of course, the heat. Over the years, I have found out that I don't have much heat tollerance and my relationship with the sun changes from summer to summer. From playful frenemies over the past few years, we have became more of rude neighbors. Recent trip to the grocery store left me red faced for over 3 hours, and no, I didn't got angry, upset or stressed. I was out for only 20 minutes!
Now...there are different kinds of food that I wanted to concentrate on. The food we eat, the food for the soul, the food for the brain and so on, but something I cannot grasp is the 'food' of chain emails. I have been ignoring them forever and they still find their way to me. It is beyond my understanding what is the use/benefit of sending them.
So basically, I'm saying that many people have been feeding me virtual crap, from blessings to more threatening messages that If I don't forward the email to 50 people, I'm going to die. Tough luck bit*es, I'm still kicking!
And lastly, this is the piece of wisdom passed to me by a dear friend that I'm going to share:

I just want to thank all of you for your educational e-mails over the past year. I am totally screwed up now and have little chance of recovery.

I no longer open a public bathroom door without using a paper towel.

I no longer have lemon slices in my ice water at a restaurant without worrying about the bacteria on the lemon peel.

I can't use the remote in a hotel room because I don't know what the last person was doing while flipping through the adult movie channels.

I can't sit down on the hotel bedspread because I can only imagine what has happened on it since it was last washed.

I have trouble shaking hands with someone who has been driving because the number one pastime while driving alone is picking one's nose (although cell phone usage may be overtaking the number one spot).

Eating a little snack sends me on a guilt trip because I can only imagine how many gallons of trans fats I have consumed over the years.

I can't touch any woman's purse for fear she has placed it on the floor of a public bathroom.

I MUST SEND MY SPECIAL THANKS to whoever sent me the one about poop in the glue on envelopes because I now have to use a wet sponge with every envelope that needs sealing...

ALSO, now I have to scrub the top of every can I open for the same reason.

I no longer have any savings because I gave it to a sick girl (Penny Brown) who is about to die in the hospital for the 1,387,258th time.

I no longer have any money at all, but that will change once I receive the $15,000 that Bill Gates/Microsoft and AOL are sending me for participating in their special e-mail program.Lately, the Money Angel and the Lakshmi goddess are doing the same.

I no longer eat KFC because their chickens are actually horrible mutant freaks with no eyes or feathers.

I no longer use cancer-causing deodorants even though I smell like a water buffalo on a hot day.

THANKS TO ALL OF YOU I have learned that my prayers only get answered if I forward an e-mail to seven of my friends and make a wish within five minutes.

BECAUSE OF YOUR CONCERN, I no longer drink Coca Cola because it can remove toilet stains.

I no longer can buy gasoline without taking someone along to watch the car so a serial killer won't crawl in my back seat when I'm pumping gas.

I no longer drink Pepsi or Dr. Pepper since the people who make these products are atheists who refuse to put 'Under God' on their cans.

I no longer use Saran Wrap in the microwave because it causes cancer.

AND THANKS FOR LETTING ME KNOW I can't boil a cup of water in the microwave anymore because it will blow up in my face... disfiguring me for life.

I no longer check the coin return on pay phones because I could be pricked with a needle infected with AIDS.

I no longer go to shopping malls because someone will drug me with a perfume sample and rob me...

I no longer receive packages from UPS or Fed Ex since they are actually Al Qaeda in disguise.

I no longer shop at Target since they are French and don't support our American troops or the Salvation Army.

I no longer answer the phone because someone will ask me to dial a number for which I will get a phone bill with calls to Jamaica , Uganda , Singapore , and Uzbekistan .

I no longer buy expensive cookies from Neiman Marcus since I now have their recipe.

THANKS TO YOU I can't use anyone's toilet but mine because a big brown African spider is lurking under the seat to cause me instant death when it bites my butt.

AND THANKS TO YOUR GREAT ADVICE I can't ever pick up $5.00 dropped in the parking lot because it probably was placed there by a sex molester waiting underneath my car to grab my leg.

I can no longer drive my car because I can't buy gas from certain gas companies!

I can't do any gardening because I'm afraid I'll get bitten by the brown recluse and my hand will fall off.

If you don't send this e-mail to at least 144,000 people in the next 70 minutes, a large dove with diarrhea will land on your head at 5:00 p.m. tomorrow afternoon and the fleas from 12 camels will infest your backside, causing you to grow a hairy hump. I know this will occur because it actually happened to a friend of my next door neighbor's ex-mother-in-law's second husband's cousin's beautician . .

Oh, by the way.....

A German scientist from Argentina , after a lengthy study, has discovered that people with insufficient brain activity read their e-mail with their hand on the mouse.

Don't bother taking it off now.....it's too late

Cinnamon rolls

Couple of weeks ago, world renowed company opened its stand in one of the shopping malls around the country. It was public holiday, it was boring and although I didn't go to the opening, I went couple of days after the opening to see what's all about. Why? Because I love cinnamon. So, I went there with my bigger half (yeah, he's bigger than me) and it was like it's last day on Earth! People were queueing like there's no tomorrow! I was not willing to wait, so we went around the shops. Just before closing time, the queue seemed manageable, so I took a chance to try of their products. Since the original cinnamon rolls were sold out, I took 2 small choco-cinnamon pieces for the price of €2.50 each and was pretty excited...until the first bite.

The rolls were not worth their money and nothing special if you ask me. So, as somewhat reasonable person, I did my research and found the 'perfect' recipe for what I wanted in a first place: a good old cinnamon roll.

So, to make 12 of these beauties, you will need:

   Dough:

• 235 ml warm milk (40-45 degrees C)
• 2 eggs, room temperature (NOT strait from the fridge)
• 75 g margarine, melted
• 615 g bread flour
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 100 g white sugar
• 10 g dried yeast

  Filling:

• 220 g brown sugar
• 15 g ground cinnamon
• 75 g softened butter

  Frosting:

• 85 g cream cheese
• 55 g softened butter
• 190 g icing sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• pinch of salt

Method:

Put the yeast in the warm milk together with the sugar and salt (in a large bowl) and let it stand for 10 minutes, until foam forms on the top. Add the rest of the dough ingredients and mix well with a wooden spoon. When you have obtained homogenous mass, knead the dough with hands lightly dusted with flour until you have smooth, elastic, pliable dough. 

Let it rest until doubled in size (about 1 hour should be enough).

For the filling, mix the brown sugar and the cinnamon in a dish and set aside until needed.

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius. From the dough, roll out a rectangle approximately 40 by 50 centimeters and spread with the butter (from the 'Filling' part). Dust evenly with the brown sugar and cinnamon mixture, roll up and cut into 12 even sized pieces.

Place rolls on a baking sheet lined with baking parchment, cover them with a cloth and let them stand for 30 minutes.

Remove the cloth and bake them for 15 minutes or until golden on top, taking care not to over bake them, as they will come out tough.

While the rolls are in the oven, prepare the frosting by beating all ingredients with an electric whisk and spread the frosting on warm rolls before serving.

Baked tortellini

I was never very big fan of tortellini, but that had changed when I used to work in a certain hotel. You see, they were paying us peanuts, but they were feeding us. Unless someone was on a special diet and had to bring their own lunch (which nobody did), the food was actually not bad. On a very good day (when the chef was in a good mood), the food was almost very good.

So, after asking the cook (not the chef, he was really snotty son of a *beep*) what goes in 'those little porcelain dishes', he kindly listed the ingredients:

To feed 4 people you will need:

300 grams tortellini
250 ml bechamel sauce
400 ml tomato sauce (plain or your favorite flavor)
1 small cup grated Cheddar cheese
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan
pinch of oregano


Method:


Cook the tortellini according to packet instructions and drain. In a suitable baking dish pour half of the bechamel sauce and put the tortellini over. Pour the rest of the bechamel sauce and gently stir, so the tortellini are covered. Pour over the tomato sauce and bake in preheated oven (200 degrees celsius) until bubbly. Remove from the oven and sprinkle the Cheddar cheese, then the Parmesan and pinch of oregano. Bake for another 10 minutes or until the cheeses are golden in color.
Enjoy!