SMOONSTYLE

 

These Christmas cookies were a huge hit with my boys! They are from Emmas Goodies. You can find the link here: YouTube 

All I did differently was that I've added some extra salted peanuts on top of the chocolate. Like this they tasted even more like Snickers :) Snowball Snicker Cookies. 

These are already the second batch that I made. They turned out more photogenic than the first batch haha! They are not really a sight for soar eyes, but they are delicious! You do need a little patience when you make these. After you've made the dough and shaped them into little balls, you have to place the freezer for 2 hours! 

Best start early in the morning, so you can enjoy them during tea/coffee time in the afternoon :)

Did you guys bake any holiday cookies this season?

I want to wish you happy holiday and a easy transition into the new year! 2022 sounds like a good year to me!

xo

Simone

 

 

 

Time to spice up your life with a new give away! SPICEBAR has kindly offered to send out two sets of their new delicious toppings. I have been devouring the Topping allrounder. I love to put it on top of my sandwiches, eggs and salads. It is so versatile!

All you need to do is tell me in the comments what your favourite meal of the day is and which spices you usually use. Are you a breakfast, lunch or dinner person? 

My discount code, Simone Simons is still valid and will give you €5 discount from the amount of €15.

Giveaway is open for Germany and Austria. The 2 winners will be announced on the 29th of September.

Good luck and eet smakelijk!

Have you guys been spending more time in the kitchen lately like me?
Quarantine time has got me backing, cooking and eating more than ever before. I have enjoyed going to restaurants and bars in the past, but I have to be my own chef nowadays. Still hate to clean the kitchen, that hasn't changed ;)

A spice mix that I have been loving for so long is from the brand SPICEBAR. They are a german company that offers high quality organic spices and dried herbs. In my household we love Italian food and the 'Pizza & Pastazauberei' is a staple in my kitchen. I have posted an easy SUMMER PASTA recipe on the blog where I used these dried herbs. When I make grilled cheese sandwiches, I like to add this as well. There are so many ways how you can use this. I wholeheartedly recommend it to all food lovers out there.

There is a wide array of products that you can choose from. The 'Red Thai Curry' went into my sweet potato soup, and it was so good! The 'Rührei Deluxe' (Scrambled Eggs) always tops off my omelet and newly the 'Vanille Hafertraum' goes on top of my muesli, the Cinnamon on my waffles, I can go on for a while. If you guys want me to show you how to make your own granola, I can make a little video as well. Let me know in the comments ;)

SPICEBAR has created the discount code 'simonesimons' that will give you €5 of any order from €15.

https://www.spicebar.de

Happy cooking, baking and eating! Make sure that you don't have to do the cleaning afterwards ;)

If you are a fan of pasta and garlic, you are going to love this!
This summer pasta is super easy to make. This is a fool proof recipe, I promise!
It is a mixture between a caprese salad and bruschetta, but then with pasta.

What you need is your favourite pasta. I like to take tagliatelle for this, but you can use any pasta you like. Depending on the amount of mouths you have to feed (mine are three), you can up the ingredients.






When you are ready to have dinner, cook your choice of pasta.
Once the pasta is finished, rinse well and add to the sauce. At this point I add the mini mozzarella balls. They become nice and soft. A little warning, you might smell very strongly of garlic. You have to make sure the whole family eats it haha! Vincent doesn't like uncooked tomatoes nor mozzerella balls. He just eats the pasta and then I add some tomato sauce to it.

Banana Bread for us is not a quarantine food, but something we enjoy all year around. It is the perfect way to use those over ripe bananas that are not looking to tasty anymore. You can also use them in a smoothie or chop them up and freeze them. Great to make nice cream as well. Today they are going to be used for Banana Bread. Yummy!

The first banana bread recipe that I posted on my blog is over 6 years ago. I have tried different versions of this classic and I must say that I found the perfect recipe that I altered a bit to my liking and also to what I have in my pantry. These days you have to freestyle a bit, because flour is hard to come by.
If you can't find whole wheat flour, you can also process oats in a blender. Works well and is super healthy and delicious.

The recipe that I used is from Cookie and Kate. I just love eating banana bread for breakfast. To completely honest to you, it is actually like a breakfast starter or a first breakfast. We are a family of Hobbits and love to have a second breakfast.

The only things that I changed were the amount of honey (Vincent and I don't like honey) and I added a quarter cup of yoghurt. Things that I have been enjoying lately is filming baking videos on Instagram.
I grabbed my tripod and camera and filmed this recipe for you:

Bananananana Bread


What is your favourite Banana Bread recipe?

Open up, I am going to feed you some delicious food for breakfast!

Raiza and me met up yesterday at a lovely Italian pasta restaurant called MISI in Brooklyn. MISI is the 'sister' restaurant from LILIA. Apparently Lilia is booked for a long time in advance, after Barack Obama recommended the restaurant. MISI is a little bit more underground, but the food is just as scrumptious!

Luckily, my sinus infection has gotten much better, so my palette almost back and I can finally taste again! Hallelujah!! That is one of the worst things about being sick for food lovers like myself.

Raiza knew what to get from the menu from previous experience, so I fully trusted her to choose for me. We ordered two starters, along with two Aperol Spritz'. Gotta have that Aperol Spritz ;)



Thank you Raiza for a lovely dinner for breakfast with mouth-watering dishes!
I can wholeheartedly recommend Misi. It is a bit on the pricey side, but well worth it!

Misi New York

Raiza has one of the most contagious smiles in the world!

Delicata Squash

Spinach Mascarpone Tortelli

Sheep's milk Ricotta filled Occhi with lemon. Aren't these super cute?!

If you are in Brooklyn and you are a pasta lover, you will not regret paying a visit to MISI.

Who doesn't love donuts? For me the best donuts I've ever had were from Voodoo Donuts. Just the plain one with powdered sugar. It is pure heaven!

Vincent is a big donut fan. For his 6th birthday I made mini donuts with a donut maker. They were the treats he took with him to his classroom to hand out to his classmates. He was already telling the kids the day before his birthday that he was going to bring donuts.

I decorated them with some white chocolate and a couple of sprinkles. These donuts are not fried, but baked. They taste more like like sponge cake, then donuts. The kids loved them anyway and they are a little less unhealthy ;)

The recipe that I used is the one that is in the manual from the donut maker. I am sure that there are better recipes out there. I will definitely experiment more. Next recipe I will try will be with yeast. I saw that Laura in the Kitchen has some recipes. The ingredients should be a little different because these donuts are baked and not fried.

Here is a link to the one that I got from KIK:  Donut Maker

They were a total hit with 6- year- olds and my parents loved them too ;) I like that they were bite size.

The Smarty Fish Cake

• Two bags of the bigger smarty tins
• Dark chocolate (or that of your preference)
• Decoration eyes

The Cookie Pirates

• Cake pop sticks
• White chocolate
• Decoration sprinkles
• Decoration eyes

The baking season has started. Honestly, I always bake. In autumn and winter a bit more than normal. But let's face it. My oven is always working.

One of my favorite YouTubers, Funnypilgrim/Yummypilgrim shared a lovely gingerbread man recipe that I wanted to try. On the hunt for the spices I went. Sold out everywhere. We all got the baking fever and so it took me a while to get the spices. In my spice drawer I found some old 'Lebkuchen Gewürz' and decided to take the chance.

For this lovely Gingerbread cake and cake pops you will need:

THE CAKE

• 220g flour
• 100g brown sugar
• 2 tbsp baking soda 
• 3 tbsp gingerbread spices
• Dash of salt
• 50ml oil (I use sunflower oil)
• 50g apple sauce or one egg in case you are vegan
• 50g molasses
• 100ml water or dairy-free milk

THE GLAZE

• 1 tbsp apricot jam
• 1 tbsp of water
• 100g molten dark chocolate (vegan or non-vegan)

DIRECTIONS
Preheat the oven to 180 Celsius.
Mix the dry ingredients and then add the wet ingredients.

Place the batter in the oven for about 30 to 40 minutes and always check with a tooth pick to see if it comes out clean when you pierce it in the middle.

Now we get to the cake pop part. My cake was not very pretty because I couldn't get it out of the baking tin. It looked quite destroyed. I cut off the top, bottom and sides to turn it into a rectangular shape. The left over cake I crumbled and mixed with a little bit of marmelade. Just enough to bind the crumbs together.

Melt the chocolate of your choice, it can be milk, semi sweet or even white chocolate. It's up to you! Since I had milk chocolate on hand, I went for that option.

I decorated the cake and added some chopped almonds, amaretti cookies and cranberries! Delicious! For the cake pops I went a little crazy and used all the fun toppings that I still had at home.

My tip for cake pops would be to first dunk the sticks in the molten chocolate and then push them in the cake balls. Let them cool upside down in the fridge for 10 minutes before you add the chocolate and decorate them.

The video for the cake you can find here: Cake
Mira (funnypilgrim) also has her own cookbook 'Yummy Kitchen' available (in German).

If there is one thing my boys love to have for breakfast, it's pancakes.