~* Peanut Butter & White Chocolate Cookies (Only 4 Ingredients!!)*~

Autumn always puts me in the mood to bake, especially on lazy Sundays when everything feels so cosy and homely in the flat.

The recipe I am sharing with you all today is for Peanut Butter & White Chocolate Cookies, a delicious treat which is ideal to share with friends and family. Made up of only 4 ingredients, it is super simple and inexpensive to make!

I know this isn't as healthy as my usual recipes, but we're all allowed a treat every once in a while, right? :)

INGREDIENTS

• 2 cups of Peanut Butter (smooth or crunchy - I used crunchy)
• 1 1/2 cups of Caster Sugar
• 2 Eggs
• 1 cup of White Chocolate Chips (you can use milk or dark chocolate if you prefer)

RECIPE

• Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.

• Put the Peanut Butter, Caster Sugar, Eggs and Chocolate Chips into a bowl and mix together until smooth to create the cookie dough.

 

• Form small dough balls by using a round tablespoon (or you can use your hands). If desired, coat the outside of the dough balls with sugar for extra sweetness.
• Place the dough balls onto the baking tray and ensure they are at least 2 inches apart from each other.
• Slightly flatten each of the dough balls with your hand or spatula. For extra deliciousness, place a few extra chocolate chips on top of each cookie.

• Bake for 6 to 8 minutes, or until the cookies are slightly browned on the bottom. Be careful not to over-bake!
• Once the cookies are done, let them cool on the baking tray for 1 minute, then transfer onto a wire rack to cool completely. 

And that's it!! Hope you enjoy these lovely cookies as much as I did - bon apetite!

~*Xmas in the Household! - 2012!!*~

Merry Xmas everyone!! :)  I hope you all had a great one!!

Now that everything surrounding the festive season is starting to slow down, I finally have time to blog and share with you all how we celebrated Christmas in our household and most importantly, what we ate!
I'm a big believer in the STRICTLY NO DIETING rule during the Xmas & New Year season, and I definately stuck to this!!


Every year, we spend Xmas day at my parents' house, and they set out a lovely buffet-style spread for dinner. As we have a mix of east (Japanese and Filipino) and west (English) in our family, they try and cater for everyone by having a mixed menu - this usually consists of a traditional English Xmas Dinner, Sushi and also Filipino foods. Instead of everyone sitting around the table with identical meals, we just pick what we want from the buffet of food before gathering together to eat.

This year, Kris and I were put in charge of the veg to serve with the traditional English Xmas Dinner. For those unfamiliar with a typical English Xmas Dinner, this consists of turkey (or any type of meat!) and "all the trimmings" - vegetables, stuffing, roast potatoes, "pigs in blankets"(chipolata sausages wrapped in bacon) and Yorkshire puddings, doused in gravy.


Preparation of the Xmas veg!


 

We chose to cook boiled carrots, sprouts, cabbage, broccoli, roasted parsnips and mashed potato (which I put Kris in charge of, and he now reckons he is the "Mash King" :-o!)

As a little addition to the table, we also cooked asparagus wrapped in Parma ham (seasoned with butter, salt and pepper) - delicious!! 



Asparagus and Parma ham
 

When we got to my parents' house on Xmas morning (at about 10:30am), the buffet was already laid out.

As always, there was a mix of Japanese/Filipino/English foods to choose from.Some dishes which we had for Xmas included:

•  Sushi
• Turkey (with veg and of course, Kris's mashed potato!)
• Spring rolls (Filipino Lumpia)
• Jamonado (a sweet Filipino ham)
• Lucban Hardinera (a type of meatloaf that originated in the Quezon Province in the Philippines)
• Chicken drumsticks
• Calamari 

Sushi!



Sushi!



Lucban Hardinera
 

We also had a selection of sweets to choose from to have as dessert, which mainly consisted of popular Filipino treats, such as:

 

•  Leche Flan (a very sweet milk flan)
• Polvoron (a powdered sweet which is individually wrapped)
• Yema (individually wrapped sweets made from egg yolk and condensed milk)
• Buko Pandan (a very popular Filipino dessert which consists of green gelatin, pandan leaves,tapioca pearls and "nata de coco", which is a chewy, translucent, jelly-like food product produced by the fermentation of coconut water)

 


Polvoron and Yema

Buko Pandan

Leche Flan

 

Needless to say, we all took advantage of such a wide selection of food and, especially with the STRICTLY NO DIETING rule, we went back for seconds (and thirds, fourths and even fifths!!)

I hope you all enjoyed your Xmas dinners too - I am sure that all families have their own Xmas traditions which they follow regarding food - what's yours?

*~ MERRY XMAS!!~*