Margarita Cookies

My friend and colleague, Matt, showed me a recipe book a few months ago - it had lots of different types of cookies and biscuits to try, and one that stuck in my mind was Margarita Cookies, so I thought I'd give them ago. I didn't have the recipe book to hand today when I was making them, so I sort of made it up as I went, following the principle of lime biscuits with tequila icing.

So here's what I did...

For the biscuits:
225g butter
110g caster sugar
275g plain flour
Zest of 1 lime

For the icing*:
115g icing sugar
2 tablespoons of tequila
Splash of lime juice

1. Cream the butter so it's light and smooth
2. Cream together the caster sugar and smooth butter
3. Mix in the lime zest
4. Work in the flour, 1 tablespoon at a time, until a dough is formed

The first batch of these I did had quite a dry dough - the second was more moist even though I used the same quantities. It's worked out nicely with both consistencies - so long as it's not sloppy and you can mould it with your hands you should be ok!

5. Roll these into small balls, about the size of a walnut, and place on a baking tray, lined with baking paper.
6. Squash the balls down with your fingers to make rough circles about 8mm thick. They don't need to be smooth - in fact the bumpier they are the easier they are to ice. You should end up with 25 biscuits.
7. Bake at 170 degrees celcius (fan assisted oven) for 13 minutes, then transfer onto a wire rack for cooling.
8. Mix in the first tablespoon of tequila to the icing sugar, to make a paste. Then mix in the next tablespoon which should loosen the mixture even more.
9. Add a splash of lime juice if you think the mixture needs loosening further - but remember it's got to stick to the biscuits and dry, so you don't want it too sloppy.
10. Dip a spoon into the icing, and drizzle it over the biscuits. To do mine I put all the biscuits close together and shook the icing over a bit like a cobweb.
11. Allow to dry for an hour (but they're ok to try before they're dry!).

*this much icing was enough to cover a batch and a half of cookies

You need this in your life (and your cereal and your yoghurt)!

Lately I've eaten really badly and it's started to take its toll, so this week I nipped into Waitrose on my lunch break for a bit of inspiration.

The food in Waitrose always looks so amazing, and it's easy to find yummy healthy things in there (as well as naughty desserts) so it's a great place to go when you need to reinvigorate your enthusiasm for eating 'proper' food. I don't shop there often, in fact I rarely buy things from there, because it's expensive and a lot of the time it really is the packaging and store environment you're paying for.

When I went this week I got this amazing concoction:

It is Waitrose "Love life" Seed, Nut and Sultana Sprinkle. It's designed to go on cereal or yoghurt, and it contains all sorts of yummy things including:

• Sultana bits
• Sesame seeds
• Pumpkin seeds (there's no food better)
• Pine Nuts
• Walnut chunks
• Flaked almonds

And probably loads more because every mouthful is different.

This week I've had it on top of Golden Syrup Oats So Simple, and on top of raspberries (out of the freezer, defrosted of course) and Greek yoghurt.

Now I should warn you, it was pretty pricey - £3.99 for 400g. But it really is worth the money, and you only need to use it sparingly to add great flavour. I'm even tempted to add it to salad.

In an effort to get healthy I've also started running - the plan is to run a couple of times a week before work - starting small and working my way up to longer / further. I figured getting up earlier will hopefully be balanced by the new energy I will discover from being active. I was so enthusiastic yesterday after making my plan that I got straight on the treadmill after work and watched some motivational videos on YouTube while I ran. The first I watched was from StartRunningDotCom - this guy, Tellman Knudson from runtellmanrun.com, really says it like it is and I found the video funny - it was the Start Running For Beginners video. I also watched Start Running - Breathing Techniques. 

That's all for now, but I'll let you know how I get on! :)