Melomakarona (honey christmas cookies) during an economic crisis!!

Recipe to survive an economic crisis.

One dose hard work
one dose support from community, friends, family
another dose of humour
big dose of anti-consumerism
a big dose of imagination
an even bigger dose of humour

and for the cooks or wanna be cooks reading this blog..don't buy..COOK!!

Get the kids involved, your house will smell amazing and you will save lots of money, and to top it all off you will be left with a sense of pride, joy, and a sneaky sense of  " If I'm going to go down.... I'm going to go down fighting"....So smile my dear friends and take things literally in your own hands.

After doing some market research here in Maroussi I realized that "melomakarona" are sold for 14-15 euros a kilo..outrageous in my opinion, so I decided to look for the best recipe and start cooking. This is my favorite..and of couse its my recipe. Try it, your house will be filled with an incredible and unforgetable aroma of cinnamon and sugar and spice and everything nice.. Here goes...!!

Melomakarona (honey christmas cookies)

ingredients

2 cups corn oil

1/2 cup sugar

1 cup fresh orange juice

1/4 cup mixture of black rum and cognac

7 cups all purpose flour

1 heaping teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon plus 1 teaspoon ground cloves
zest from two oranges
1cup coarsely crushed walnuts

sirop
2 cups water
2 cups sugar
1 cup honey
1 cinnamon stick
10 cloves
1/2 orange with peel

steps:

mix the oil and sugar until sugar is diluted well
add the cinnamon and clove
stir the soda in the orange juice and add to the mixture (be careful it erupts like a volcanoe..hahaha)
sift flour, mix baking powder and soda in the flour mixture and add to the liquid mixture
add zest
knead just until all the ingredients are incorporated and the dough no longer sticks to the sides of the bowl

form oval shaped cookies and make small holes on the tops with a fork
place non-stick parchment paper on a cookie sheet and place cookies leaving some space between the cookies to allow for any expansion

cook at 180c for 20-25 minutes until golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow them to cool.

Make the sirup by placing 2 cups sugar, 2cups water, 1 cup honey in a pot. Add one cinnamon stick, 10 whole cloves, and 1/2 orange (with peel) with the cut side facing the bottom of the pot. Please use oranges that are from biological farms and of course still wash the orange very well before you place it in your sirup.

Allow the mixture to boil for 5minutes . When the sirup is ready lower the heat to the lowest setting only to keep the sirup warm and place cookies about 4 at a time in the sirup. Count for about 10 seconds on each side remove and allow to cool. Sprinkle the walnuts over the cookies..and do not..repeat DO NOT think of your diet.

Merry Christmas my dear friends and remember ...be good every day of the year!!

my christmas pledge!!

It's that time of year again, Christmas. This year I am trying to figure out why the holidays are so stressful for so many people. For one thing its the end of another year. Come on now, seriously, how happy can we be that the years are rolling along faster than we ever imagined.

What's worst though is that we all have visions of Christmas filled with family, laughing kids, grandparents that are so sweet, big beautiful houses with fireplaces, snow, and of course joy, endless joy. All of a sudden for one day of the year we all try to be like that,  a perfect, porcelain make-belief family, with no cracks or edges. All my life I coudn't understand why I was so depressed around Christmas...well maybe it was because my family was nothing close to that dream.  My parents argued, my brother and I would pick at each other untill someone ended up crying. The next day, boxing day, everything was over except for the leftovers and the crazy, shopping-madness during the after Christmas sales. That was it.

Another year and NO MAGIC!!.

Then adulthood came with divorce and the joy of sharing your kid on the holidays. Christmas eve with dad....Christmas day with me..and the stress and sadness continued. Except now I had the added stress of trying to create this perfect environment for my son. I had sworn my Christmases would be different, they would be special.

After 50 Christmases under my belt my experience tells me that the dream is only that, a dream that will never be real because its so stupid. We cannot pretend to be something we are not. We are not dolls, we are people with lives that are sometimes painful and hard and sometimes wonderful. Our parents treat us like 10 year olds even if we're 50 but you know what, we love them anyways and to this day I would trade anything in the world to hear my dad's complaints at Christmas just one more time.

My effort to make Christmas special continues basically for my youngest son, but what I pledge to never do again is to try to change all the things and people around me for that one day. I pledge to make things special and childlike everyday of the year. I pledge to love and care about my family and friends every day, and I pledge to teach my children goodness everyday and not only around Christmas.

Having said my peace, now I can cook for my family and friends!!

What a relief!!

My recipees coming soon......