GUILTY PLEASURES | LEMON COOKIES

I have a new guilty pleasure: homemade lemon cookies! And it's not just me....Hubby Gurt might even be an even bigger addict than I am!

Only 2 days ago I baked a batch and filled this jar and only slightly ashamed I am telling you that we just ate the last 4!

If you dare and want to give these a try then here's what you need and how you make them.

ingredients:

175 gram flour
175 gram butter
30 gram cornstarch
150 gram granulated sugar
1 egg yolk
2 teaspoons rasped lemon peel [make sure you don't rasp the white of the peel because it tastes bitter]
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice [I squeeze it from the lemon I rasped]
half a teaspoon baking powder
quarter teaspoon salt
half a teaspoon vanilla extract

how to make:

1. [with a kitchen machine or regular mixer using the dough hooks] mix the cornstarch, flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl.
2. Add the lemon rasp en butter cut to cubes and mix it until you have a crumbly substance [I use my hands in this fase]
3. Mix the egg yolk, vanilla extract and lemon juice in a small cup and then add it to the crumbly dough. Keep squeezing [or mixing] until you have a coherent dough.
4. Roll the dough into small rolls of approximately 25cm in lenght and a diameter of around 2cm. Wrap these in foil and put them in the fridge for at least 2 hours.
5. Preheat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius
6. Get rid of the foil, cut the rolls into small slices of approximately 7mm and put them with a cm in between cookies on an oven plate that you covered with baking paper
7. Bake the cookies until they are slightly brown, which is after 12 to 14 minutes.
8. Let the cookies cool down on a grid.

Variation: Before I started rolling I divided the dough in 2 parts and added a small handful of raisins to one part.

Then hide them somewhere safe or they will gone before you got a change to taste them yourself!

FAVORITE SUMMER TEA AND SNEAK PEEK

I bet many of you have noticed that my flow of designs has been a little less frequent then usual. The reason is that my regular job has gotten a bit more demanding and this will be the case for a little while longer. It doesn't mean that I am not working on new stuff. On the contrary!!

It's just taking me longer to finish a new product because I have less time to design that's all.

I thought it might be fun to share a little sneaky peek of what I am working on at the moment.

It's a collab I am creating with my best digidesigner friend and if all goes well we will release this new kit on June 27.

While I am writing this little update I am enjoying a cup of my fav summer tea 'cocktail'. Super easy to make and yet SO delicious!

Join me in a cuppa?

YAY A GOOD HAIR DAY!!

I have been wearing my hair in a ponytail for like as long as I can remember. Probably since I left highschool and I can tell you that's been a while!

I had an appointment with my hairdresser a week ago and was seriously thinking about having my hair cut so short that a ponytail would be out of the question. Simply not possible.

I went on a Pinterest quest for cute short hairdo's and found gazillions but then it hit me that very short hair would mean my hair would look the same everyday too. Sigh.....

I decided to ask my hairdresser for advice and she kind of pointed out the obvious. With my current lenght I had all the possibilies in the world! Messy bun, neat bun, all sorts of braided do's, knotted do's, curls and yes also ponytails. DUH!!!

Probably needless to say but I decided to stick with what I had and went on another Pinterest quest the following day [don't you just LOVE Pinterest!] this time for all kinds of cute hairdo's for middle long to long hair and I found this a.m.a.z.i.n.g. blog with tons of fairly easy to do hairstyles [remember I am a beginner at this hairdo thing] and she has great video tutorials too! How cool is that?!!! The blog is run by Abby Smith and it's called Twist Me Pretty .

To finally come to a conclusion....I have been trying several styles and I am SO proud of my progress. It's been ages since I had the feeling but dumdadumdum yesterday I had a GOOD hairday! Yay!

Here's what my hair looked like

and this is the original 'knotted hairdo' I found on the Twist Me Pretty blog.

 Not bad huh?!

THE BEST CHICKEN EVER!

Man o man o man! We had THE BEST chicken ever last night and I think it would be ever so selfish to keep this recipe to myself. Actually, I found it on the Smakelijck blog so it already is out there on the web, but it's in Dutch and I really want ALL my friends to be able to get a taste of this, not just the Dutch reading ones.

To give you an idea of it's taste....
The chicken fillet is stuffed with homemade sundried tomato tapenade, breaded with parmesan cheese and fresh cut parsley and then roasted in the oven with fresh tomatoes. It's just oozing with flavours and it's so yummilicious tender and moist!

An idea of what it looks like...

And this is how it's made...

THE RECIPE

For the tapenade you need:

• approximately 100 grams of sundried tomatoes
• 2 tblsp of ground parmesan cheese
• 2 tblsp of pine nuts
• small hand of fresh basil
• small or half a clove of garlic
• salt and pepper
• drizzle of olive oil

Chop all the ingredients with a hand blender to a tapenade

* If you have some tapenade left you can keep it in a sealed container in the fridge for a few days. Just make sure you poor some extra olive oil over it!

For the chicken you need [for 2 people]:

• 2 chicken fillets
• 1 scrambled egg [scramble the egg in a large enough bowl that you can dip the chicken in it]
• a small hand full of bread crumb [home made or from the store]
• a small hand fullof ground parmesan cheese
• 2 tblsp of fresh cut parsley
• 30 grams of real butter
• 150 grams of cherry tomatoes
• salt and pepper
• and of course your homemade tomato tapenade

Cut the chicken fillets in half but NOT al the way through so you can fold them open like a book. Cover with a nice layer of tapenade and fold back together. You can use a toothpick to keep both sides together but mine just stuck together nicely and so will yours probably.

Mix the bread crumb with the cheese and parsely in a bowl.
Dip the chicken in the scrambled egg and then carefully sink it in the bread crumb mixture. Flip it around until it is completely coated.

Put the coated chicken fillets in a baking dish and sprinkle with some leftover bread crumb mixture if necessary. Wait! Don't put it in the oven just yet. There's one more thing that needs to be done first.
Melt the butter in a pan and poor it evenly over the fillets.

Now it's time to put the dish in a preheated oven at 180 degrees Celsius for 15 minutes. After the 15 minutes add the tomatoes on the sides of the fillets and in between.
Add a little salt and pepper and slide back in the oven for another 10 minutes.

Then it's ready to serve!
Lovely with baked or roasted potatoes and green beans or a nice salad!

Bonne Appétit!