hopes.dreams.aspirations

Hazelnut cocoa nibs cookies

Today J helped me with some freezer cookie dough. These are the ones I always have in the freezer, to be whipped out in a second when cookies are called for in short notice. You can replace the hazelnuts with other nuts you like: pistachios, macadamias or cashews. Ingredients 1 cup hazelnuts, finely chopped 1…

Easiest sugar cookies

I love getting maximum yield out of minimal efforts. The fact that a single batch of cookie dough produces a large amount of little bites that will last our family for a while (er, like 2 weeks) gives me great satisfaction. These are very cute too as gifts at children’s parties. Ingredients 1 cup (250g)…

Tres Macs

This post is about trying a new lighting set up. These were shot in the afternoon. In these photos, I had a dark brown kitchen bar stool sitting next to my living room sliding door, where the warm afternoon sun is coming in at a nice 45 degree angle, coming through from the left. The…

Blueberry macaron

Once again I delegated the task of choosing our next macaron flavour to J. ‘What colour macaron should we make this time?’ ‘er. Teal!’ ( that being my favourite colour) Hm how can I get this colour without buying the actual colour gel? A bit of blue and yellow should do the trick! Read my…

Chinese pickle – turnip, carrot and cucumber

Sushi has become a very common choice for meals these days, for its multitude of flavours and healthy ingredients (perhaps not so the fried pork cutlet with layers of fat-ladden mayo). Surprisingly, J doesn’t like sushi and I still haven’t figured out exactly why. With her new found love for prawns, I might try a…