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or www.dianalindesign.com

cranberry oatmeal cookies

By Fiona Haynes, About.com Guide

Cook Time: 10 minutes
Total Time: 10 minutes
Ingredients:

* 1 1/4 cups quick or old-fashioned rolled oats
* 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
* 3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
* 1/2 tsp baking soda
* 1/2 tsp salt
* 6 tbsp butter, softened (less to 3 tbsp)
* 3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar (less to 1/2 cup)
* 2 egg whites
* 1 tsp vanilla extract
* 1 tsp finely grated orange peel
* 3/4 cup dried cranberries
(add a hand full of chocolate chips and MMs)

Preparation:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.
Place oats, flour, cinnamon, baking soda and salt in a bowl; stir with a whisk.
In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in egg whites, vanilla extract and orange peel. Gradually add flour and oats mixture, stir with a wooden spoon until blended. Fold in cranberries. Drop dough by rounded tablespoons on to cookie sheets, about 2 inches apart.

Bake for 10-12 minutes or until edges are golden. Cool on cookie sheet for 1 minute, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Makes 24 cookies.
Per serving: Calories 70, Calories from Fat 28, Total Fat, 3.2g (sat 1.8g), Cholesterol 8mg, Sodium 80mg, Carbohydrate 9g, Fiber 0.7g, Protein 1.4g

Here a picture of the finished cookies with my dog Dou Dou ;)

My Style of Chocolate Chip Cookies

from allrecipies.com and customized to my style~

Ingredients
* 1 cup butter, softened
* 1 cup white sugar
* 1 cup packed brown sugar
* 2 eggs
* 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
* 3 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 2 teaspoons hot water
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
* 1 cup chopped walnuts

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. Cream together the butter, white sugar, and brown sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Dissolve baking soda in hot water. Add to batter along with salt. Stir in flour, chocolate chips, and nuts. Drop by large spoonfuls onto ungreassed pans.
3. Bake for about 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until edges are nicely browned.

**Add some of diana's touch~

Use a little less sugar, only half of the butter and whatever nuts and dry fruit you like. here i used dry cranberries :)

Hot Italian Sausage and Tomato Pasta

Recipe from Real Simple.com

Serves 4
Hands-On Time: 10m
Total Time: 30m
Ingredients
1 pound dry fettuccine
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium red onion, sliced
1 clove garlic, smashed
4 hot Italian sausages, casings removed
1 pint red or yellow cherry tomatoes
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, torn
1 cup arugula, torn
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan

Directions
1.Cook the fettuccine according to the package directions. Drain and set aside.
2.Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook until the onion softens, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the sausage and cook about 5 minutes, using a wooden spoon to crumble it. Add the tomatoes and cook until the skins burst, about 8 minutes. Stir in the vinegar, salt, and pepper.
3.Add the cooked fettuccine, basil, and arugula and toss gently to combine. Serve in bowls and top with the Parmesan.

Ginger bread Cookies

INGREDIENTS
2 & 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 & 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup shortening (substituted with butter)
1/2 cup molasses (substituted with honey)
1 egg

METHOD
Into a large bowl, mix all dry ingredients (flour, baking powder,baking soda, cinnamon, 1. ginger, cloves and salt)
2. Into a separate bowl cream shortening and sugar together. Beat in Egg and molasses
3. Mix shortening mixture into the dry ingredients
4. Flour counter top and roll out dough
5. cut your cookie shapes and bake on a baking sheet at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes
6. Cool on a cooling rack
Once cooled top them with our ROYAL ICING RECIPE along with sprinkles or candy and these will sure to be a hit!

roast chicken with lemon and

ingredients
• 1 x 2kg/4½lb free-range organic chicken
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2kg/4½lb potatoes, peeled
• 1 large, preferably unwaxed, lemon
• 1 whole bulb of garlic,broken into cloves
• a handful of fresh thyme
• olive oil
• a handful of fresh rosemary sprigs, leaves picked
• optional: 8 rashers of smoked streaky bacon

main courses
Serves 4
Roast chicken remains one of our favourite dishes at home. I
recently discovered a way to make the chicken taste even better,
by putting a lemon in with my potatoes when I was parboiling
them. It smelt fantastic and flavoured the potatoes. Then when I
was draining them I decided to stab the lemon, which hissed out
juice and steam, and quickly jammed it inside the chicken! The
benefits of the hot steaming lemon going into the chicken are
very obvious as the meat tastes amazing, and the chicken cooks
slightly quicker because of it.

Rub the chicken inside and out with a generous amount of salt
and freshly ground black pepper. Do this in the morning if
possible, then cover the chicken and leave in the fridge until
you're ready to start cooking it for lunch or dinner. By doing this,
you'll make the meat really tasty when cooked. Preheat your
oven to 190ºC/375ºF/gas 5. Bring a large pan of salted water to
the boil. Cut the potatoes into golf-ball-sized pieces, put them
into the water with the whole lemon and the garlic cloves, and
cook for 12 minutes. Drain and allow to steam dry for 1 minute
(this will give you crispier potatoes), then remove the lemon and
garlic. Toss the potatoes in the pan while still hot so their
outsides get chuffed up and fluffy – this will make them lovely
and crispy when they roast.

While the lemon is still hot, carefully stab it about 10 times. Take
the chicken out of the fridge, pat it with kitchen paper and rub it
all over with olive oil. Push the garlic cloves, the whole lemon
and the thyme into the cavity, then put the chicken into a
roasting tray and cook in the preheated oven for around 45
minutes. Remove the chicken to a plate. Some lovely fat should
have cooked out of it into the roasting tray, so toss the potatoes
into this with the rosemary leaves. Shake the tray around, then
make a gap in the centre of the potatoes and put the chicken
back in. If using the bacon, lay the rashers over the chicken
breast and cook for a further 45 minutes, or until the chicken is
cooked and the potatoes are nice and golden. (You can tell the
chicken is cooked when the thigh meat pulls easily away from
the bone and the juices run clear.)

I like to remove the bacon from the chicken and crumble it up
over the potatoes. Then I remove the lemon and garlic from
inside the chicken, squeeze all the garlic flesh out of the skin,
mush it up and smear it all over the chicken, discard the lemon
and rosemary and carve the chicken at the table. Heaven!

Hot Chocolate with Rum

Poquito Mas Mexico: Mexican Hot Chocolate with Aged Rum and Maraschino Cherry Liqueur
Makes two drinks

3.3 oz tablet of Ibarra Mexican chocolate
2 ½ cups milk
4 ounces aged rum or dark rum (I used Havana Club Aged Rum)
2 ounces Maraschino Liqueur

Simmer the milk, being careful not to let it boil. Meanwhile, break up the tablet of Mexican Chocolate into pieces. Add the pieces of chocolate to the hot milk and stir until melted and fully combined.

Turn off the heat and pour into a bowl large enough to hold the liquid without it coming to the top. Add the rum and the maraschino liquor. Using a whisk (or a wooden “molinillo,” if you have one), froth the milk by spinning the whisk between your hands. Or, if you’re in a rush, put a small amount of the warm liquid in a blender and pulse it. After frothing, pour into two warm mugs and serve immediately.

by FoodWoolf on January 23, 2010