Roasted Tomatoes

Roasting tomatoes is very easy and they can be used in sandwiches or eaten by themselves.

Ingredients:

6-8 tomatoes, cut in quarters

2 tablespoons of olive oil

1 teaspoon of dried oregano

salt

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 400F. In a large bowl rub tomatoes with olive oil and oregano, salt to taste. Arrange tomato wedges skin side down on a baking sheet. Bake in the oven for 1 hour.

Almond and Cherry Yogurt

Tired of eating the same thing over and over again? I hear you. To make my Chobani yogurt more fun these days I add two tablespoons of sliced toasted almonds. Almost like a dessert!

Thanksgiving Trip to San Francisco

This year we went to San Francisco to celebrate Thanksgiving with our family. We did manage to get away and do some sightseeing. The highlight of the trip was walking across the Golden Gate Bridge at sunset.

Other things worth mentioning are: visiting the Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Blue Bottle Coffee and dinner at Spruce. All with the baby and a stroller!

Pear Walnut Blue Cheese and Red Onion Pizza

This is another pizza I made using Trader Joe's pizza dough and other ingredients. I already posted a longer post about making pizza at home using ingredients from Trader Joe's. This time I used olive oil as a base and then added slices of pear, chopped walnuts, blue cheese and sliced red onions. As always the key is not to use too much of the ingredients!

Russian Tea Cookies with Cardamon

Oh, Russian Tea cookies! I did not know about you until I moved to the US. And as far as I know none of my Russian friends knew about them in Russia either. But I love them. What not to love? Butter, sugar and pecans! The recipe is your basic Betty Crocker plus I added some cardamon.



Ingredients:

4 oz of butter, room temperature
1/4 cup of powdered sugar
1/8 teaspoon of salt
1/8 teaspoon of cardamon
1 heaping cup of flour
1/2 cup of finely chopped pecans
1/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Powdered sugar

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 400F. In a large bowl mix together powered sugar, butter, salt, vanilla extract and cardamon. Next, add pecans and mix well. Lastly, add flour and mix again until you have a dough of even consistency. I use my hands to do all the mixing.

2. Roll the dough into balls, flatten them a little bit with your hands - I get 2 inch diameter cookies. Place cookies on a cookie sheet leaving 1-2 inch space between them - no greasing is needed. Bake for 12 minutes until cooked but not brown though most likely the bottom will be slightly brown.

3. Roll hot cookies in powdered sugar one at a time and then set them to cool. Once cookies have cooled off roll them in powdered sugar once again.