More cookies!

Hooray! Dan's back this weekend. Okay, he's back every weekend, thankfully, but it's the holidays and I like making him stuff, so there. I like this recipe, I make the cookie batter, then I divide it, then add white chocolate and cranberries to half, dark chocolate and walnut to the other. Everybody wins.

CRANBERRY WHITE CHOCOLATE COOKIES
CHOCOLATE WALNUT COOKIES

INGREDIENTS

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
  
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
  
• 2 eggs
  
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup walnuts
• 3/4 cup cranberries
• 1 bar good quality white chocolate (candy bar)
• 1 bar good quality dark chocolate (candy bar)
  

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a medium bowl, cream the shortening, white sugar, and brown sugar together. Add eggs and vanilla, mix well. Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt, stir into the creamed mixture.
   
3. Divide in two. Stir in the cranberries and the white chips to one half, walnuts and dark chocolate chips into the other half.
4. Drop cookies by heaping spoonfuls onto unprepared cookie sheets. Bake for 7 to 15 minutes (dependent on cookie size) in the preheated oven. Take cookies out of the oven when they are light brown and not yet set. It creates a softer cookie. Allow cookies to cool for a few minutes on the baking sheet before removing to cool on wire racks.

I used 1/2 butter and 1/4 oil to make the fat more healthy. This time I used about 3/4 whole wheat flour as part of the flour, just to see how it would taste.

Marketing

For the last month or so I have been looking forward to Christmas markets in Germany. Everyone said they were impressive, so yesterday I decided to drag Daniel out to Aachen. Aachen was supposed to have a big market, in the open area around the cathedral in the dead center of town.


A little introduction, since I was relatively unaware before we ended up here:
Every year, for centuries, cities and towns all over Germany celebrate Advent (the Sundays after Nov. 26 leading up to Christmas Day) with Christmas markets in their city-centers. The tradition originates with Dresden, Christmas 1434. The markets range in size and slightly in theme, the bigger ones drawing thousands of visitors. There are even vacation packages offered for "Christmas market touring", with hotel and transportation. Visitors enjoy the traditional atmosphere, the hand-made crafts, Christmas decorations and warm food and drink.

So we took the train, had some trouble at the station with the normal train schedule, strike-related we think, but we finally got into town and walked into the market on foot. At first I thought it might be quiet, it being only the second day open, but there were lots of people.














We wanted to try some Gluhwein, the hot spiced wine that is made just at Christmas time here, but the wine area was completely squashed, so we just pushed farther in. There were lots of Christmas decorations and hand-made stuff (that I never seem to be very good at buying), and music and great food.

It was actually a lot of fun, Dan was happy to go after all. Up til now, all the festivals we have seen were beer and sausages and fried potatoes and German songs we didn't understand. Christmas is pretty straight forward.

We'll have to try the Gluhwein this coming weekend when the market comes to Stolberg!

Happy

Happy (U.S.) Thanksgiving everyone!!

PB Cookies

So I guess we should have a section called 'Basic Baking 101', we tried yet another simple recipe over the weekend. All of these ingredients everyone probably has at home. These are good with a glass of milk. Enjoy.

PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES

INGREDIENTS

• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup white sugar
• 3/4 cup peanut butter
• 1/2 cup butter
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a bowl, cream together the butter, peanut butter, and sugar. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Combine the flour, baking powder and salt; stir into the peanut butter mixture. Roll into balls and place onto a unprepared cookie sheet. Press with fork to flatten cookie and to create criss-cross pattern.
   
3. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven. Shorter time window for cookies will be soft and chewy, longer for crispier cookies. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Super Sonntag

Saturday, I ran around all day - doing errands, cleaned the apartment, got my hair cut finally. Dan got back from France around 8:30 p.m. Good day. Today we did pretty much the opposite, got up late, and hung around the apartment, laundry and cooked and watched tv. Here is a picture of me with dinner that Dan thought would be nice to post (apartment hair and all).

My books came

only a month late. My Halloween-scary-book spirit has departed, I'll still take the books.

We have honest neighbors; the mailbox disarray at the apartment complex:

Weekend review

I forgot the camera (boo) but the weekend was really great. We went shopping on Saturday. I like shopping in France more than Germany because I understand more of the signs, and of course I have Dan to translate.

Biggest oddity, new for both of us, was at the biggest store we went into, Auchan (think French Walmart). As people enter the store, there is a machine which seals any bags you are bringing into the store. It is just a press with heat, and if you wish they provide clear bags you can put over your bag, if it's not plastic or you don't want to ruin it. I guess this is to assure the cashier that you didn't slip anything into your other shopping bags.

Dinner on Saturday was terrific, had dinner at a Thai place near the water in Cergy. Dan had garlic shrimp and I had chicken curry. The dishes were excellent, I would definitely go back, too bad it's in Cergy not Stolberg. We tried another place for dessert, also by the harbour.

Sunday we relaxed, until the mad car ride to the train station. Paris is the worst place to drive that I've seen - I'm sure there are worse, but it was maddening yesterday. We had ourselves an hour cushion and still needed more time. There was some outdoor street market going on, about 2 km outside of the Gare du Nord train station where I was leaving from. We drove a total of 200 m in 30 minutes time. There was only one train running to Aachen on Sunday, so if I had missed it, that would have been it until Monday. So with about 5 minutes left before the train leaves, Dan gets pretty gutsy and pulls into the bus lane, and then over into a delivery parking spot. He grabs my bag and we run, literally, as fast as my cowboy-booting feet can boogy, the last 500 meters to the front and inside, down the station where they are waving me to get on because it's leaving NOW. I leap inside, and that's it. I don't think it can be any closer than that. I was on the wrong part of the train, and had to switch in Brussels about 1.5 hrs later so I could have a real seat. Oh la la, Paris!

No, but seriously, we have decided we'll try the Metro/RER subway route next time. As long as there is no strike, it should be a more sane way to get in and out of that train station.

Tourist side note:
According to my googling, Gare du Nord train station is quite famous, as train stations go, it is the busiest train station in Europe and is in the Bourne movies 1 and 3, and in Ocean's Twelve.

Paris this weekend!

Taking the train to meet up with Dan in France at the end of the week. I'm excited. I was somewhat anxious about the big train to Paris when I did it the first time. Worried I would do the wrong thing, like there were unwritten rules about traveling by train that I was never taught. And I think there are these rules, but like most things, you watch and listen and learn. So anyway, I'm so excited to be seeing Dan, and it is also a good 3 hours I can put into a book of my choosing.

Side note: The Thalys (the train company doing runs from Germany to Paris-Nord) website, really needs some work. It doesn't work with Firefox (you can look for tickets but some functionality currently isn't working), and even in IE, it shows there are errors on the pages. Doesn't exactly exude clean and safe to me.

Cupcakes

I made these cupcakes and Dan and I both like them quite a lot so I'm sharing the recipe:

VANILLA CUPCAKES

INGREDIENTS

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup butter
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour 9x9 inch pan or paper cupcake pan.
2. In large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter. Beat in the eggs, slowly, then the vanilla.
3. Combine flour and baking powder, add to the creamed mixture and mix well. Finally add the milk to the batter, it should become smooth. Pour batter into the pan.
4. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes in the preheated oven for the cake. For cupcakes, bake 20 to 25 minutes. Cake is done when it springs back to the touch and turns a golden color.