Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies

Stir in maybe a cup of unsweetened coconut flakes (or more if it looks like it needs it) and cover in melted chocolate after they've come out of the oven.

I made these for a brunch I went to last weekend, and they were really popular. The cookies are not too sweet, and shortbread-y, and the tea flavour is not too overwhelming.

Earl Grey Tea Cookies
from Martha Stewart's Cookies

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons finely ground Earl Grey tea leaves (from about 4 bags)
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1 tablespoon finely grated orange zest

1. Whisk together flour, tea, and salt in a bowl.

2. Put butter, confectioners' sugar, and orange zest in a bowl. With an electric mixer, mix on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about three minutes. Reduce speed to low; gradually mix in flour mixture until just combined.

3. Divide dough in half. Transfer each half to a piece of parchment paper; shape into logs. Roll in parchment to 1 1/4 inches in diametre. Freeze until firm, 1 hour.

4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Cut logs into 1/4-inch-thick slices. Spare 1 inch apart on baking sheets lined with parchment.

5. Bake cookies, rotating sheets halfway through, until edges are golden, 13 to 15 minutes. Let cool on sheets on wire racks. Cookies can be stored in airtight containers at room temperature up to 5 days.

In a small saucepan, add:
~1 cup water
~2 cups milk
2 tea bags (your preference; I use black)
1 or 2 cinnamon sticks
cardamom pods
whole allspice berries
chunk of ginger, peeled
whole cloves
drop of vanilla extract

Let this simmer until it's about the colour of café au lait, strain, and serve. Sweeten with sugar or honey, to taste.

Mom has gone to Ontario to visit *her* mother, so from now until Wednesday, I'm going to be cooking my own meals.

I know I'm not going to burn the house down, but I'm not so sure I won't give myself food poisoning :/

So tonight's attempt to Not Die of Starvation was spaghetti in a bacon sauce. It was better than it sounds, really.

A lot of this is very much improvised on the spot -- I wanted to make something pasta-y with bacon and the half an onion we had in the fridge but I wasn't sure how to make anything using those. My mom's cookbooks were not helpful, so I just started tossing stuff in the pan and then googled a recipe after the fact so I wouldn't make something *totally* inedible.

This was very much an experiment, so there's a lot of 'what I'd do next time' type stuff.

I chopped up three rashers of bacon, a clove of garlic, and a quarter of an onion and sauteed them in a pan until the bacon was crispy and the onions were soft. I cooked them together in a non-stick pan, but next time I make this recipe, I'll cook the bacon a bit first before I add the onions, because it takes longer, and the onions got a bit crispy.

Then I dumped the bacon&onions into a bowl to drain out the fat and deglazed the pan with some chicken stock made from the corner off a bouillon cube and some hot water scooped out of the pasta pot. Next time I'm not going to use a non-stick pan so I actually *have* something to deglaze XD. And I'll deglaze it with white wine; the only alcohol we had in the house tonight was two-thirds of a bottle rum. I don't think that would have gone well with my sauce XD XD

I tossed the bacon and onion back in, let it simmer for a minute and added some milk (shoulda been cream, shoulda been room temperature) and then let it reduce for a bit.

Meanwhile, I'd cooked some spaghetti (egg noodles next time, maybe), so once that was done, I drained it and tossed it in the pan with the sauce, stirred it about so the pasta could absorb some of the sauce.

I ate half of it and saved the other half for lunch tomorrow.

It was delicious, and I wish I had pictures to show you :(

Tomorrow I plan on roasting a chicken in the oven before I go to Andrew's for Greek Easter. Possibly I will try to make some gravy too!

Recycled from my old blog, because this is just too good to not share. Some of the ingredients might be hard to find, but it's worth hunting them down. Health-food stores would probably have most of this stuff.

Ingredients:

• 1 piece of ginger, cut into chunks (use a piece about half the size of your thumb)
  
• 1 cinnamon stick
  
• 4 whole cloves
  
• 3 cardamon pods
  
• 1 drop vanilla
  
• ½ tablespoon sugar
  
• 2 tablespoons honey
  
• 2 tea bags (I use Orange Pekoe, but any kind of black tea will do)
  
• 1 cup water
  
• 1 cup milk
  

Directions:
Bring the water to a rapid boil, and add all the ingredients, save for the milk.

Reduce heat to low, and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add milk, cover, and allow to boil again. I usually leave it on the heat for about twenty minutes, but the time should vary depending on how strong you want to tea to be.

Strain into a large pitcher.

Add milk to the chai to taste - about a litre is what I normally use, depending on the strength of the tea - and serve chilled.