Nutty little men, stars and snowmen

These hazelnut Christmas cookies were gone in a blink! They are so simple to make and are delicious.

300g all-purpose flour

200g ground hazelnuts

200g butter

150g sugar

1pckg vanilla sugar 

or 1/2 tsp vanilla essence

1 egg or egg substitute 

1 pinch salt

Mix all ingredients in a bowl. I used cold butter and the dough was still hard enough to be rolled and cut out. If your dough is too warm, wrap it up and put it in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Roll out the dough on a flour dusted surface. Use any kind of cookie cutters.

For the icing I simply squeezed 

1 lemon and added

about 250g icing sugar

and covered the cooled down cookies! Done and eaten in a blink!

Christmas party style

20s hair do for the Golf Club Christmas party :)

2013 advent calendar

The 2013 advent calendar is up!! I have hidden 24 surprises! The countdown to christmas has begun! 

Spelt leftover lunch

Two zucchinis, a few carrots, some celery sticks and a whole lot of nothing in my fridge. That happens sometimes. On days like today fir example. On this cold winter morning with chilly bora wind blowing from the east, I decided against grocery shopping and invented a new recipe: leftover spelt; meaning spelt with whatever leftovers there are. 

Here is what I used:

4 medium organic carrots

2 large organic zucchinis

1 celery stick

2 cloves of garlic (I was out of onion, but would have added it otherwise)

250 grams/2 cups of spelt 

extra virgin olive oil

1/2 lemon

a few basil leaves

salt, pepper 

other herbs if you like such as

rosemary or thyme

First off, preheat oven to the highest setting possible. Wash the spelt and soak in in fresh water for at least 20 minutes. In the meantime, wash and chop all veggies into small pieces, you can cut the garlic cloves very small and mix them up with the rest or leave them whole and take them out once the veggies are cooked. Mix all the veggies together, add a splash of olive oil, salt, pepper, lemon juice, herbs of your choice (do not add the basil yet).

In a cooking sheet roast all veggies. Cook Spelt in fresh salted water for about 20 minutes, the same time the veggies need. When the spelt is cooked, strain it, let the water evaporate, then mix veggies and grains in a large bowl. Mix in chopped basil leaves. Let everything stand for a while to let flavours develop. Serve warm or cold. It's whole, healthy and: vegan! My hunny loved it with some not so vegan grated Parmesan cheese. Enjoy!