gingerbread things

I made gingerbread people - a man a woman and a brat. Oh and some trees, a couple of ugly hearts and a blob.

This year I used the recipe from Leiths Baking Bible (which is going on my 'to buy' list), which was a bit harder to roll out than the recipe I used two Christmases ago. But it is also more buttery and a bit more tasty. The old recipe (which my mum had been using for ages) required golden syrup, which tends to result in a crunchy biscuit - I prefer softer, slightly chewy biscuits so this new recipe does it for me. I'll have to figure out how to roll it out better next time though. I'll try to put up a recipe soon. But my cookie cutters are still the same as before so in the meantime, please revisit the suicide family.

Next up from Leiths - cinnamon biscuits perhaps?

And in other cooking adventures, I churned out a sangria and a Bill Granger Brownie on Saturday morning, hopped out to Au Petit Salut at Dempsey for a set lunch (snails, salty duck confit, chocolate and hazelnut custard), meandered my way through the puddles back home to cook mussels (For 1.5kg of mussels, use 250ml white wine, chopped garlic, chopped tomatoes and fresh basil, and a bit of pepper. Chuck into a pot, steam till the mussels open), and a chickpea/bacon/spinach warm salad, and a cold salad of butterhead lettuce and cherry tomatoes. My mom made her seafood paella, and when the guests arrived, we poured out the rather strong sangria, offered two types of olives, sliced bread and tada, a Spanish-inspired dinner for a Saturday night.

Listening: Tina Dico - One (from In The Red)