Holiday cookies

Whatever religion these days, the Holiday Cookies make all kids happy. This is an old, genuine recipe from my maternal grandma which has been baking these cookies for half a century:

To make about 200 cookies you´ll need
500 gram wheat flour
2 eggs
400 gram butter
250 gram sugar
3-4 spoonful ice cold milk or cream
vanilla and a little spoon baking powder

For the icing you´ll need
Lotsa powdered sugar
Food color (red, green, yellow)
Cocoa powder
Some cold water
Colored cookie sugar bits

Seperate the egg yolk from the white. Put the white in a cup and away; you´ll need it later. The yolks are to be used in the cookie dough.

Mix flour, egg yolks, vanilla, baking powder, sugar and cubed pieces of the butter into an electric mixer to knead. When these ingredients are mixed thoroughly, add the ice cold milk, keep mixing. After a few minutes the dough will start to gather and become firm.

Put the dough together with your hands and cut to average pieces, my recipe´ll make about 4-5 chunks of dough. Each chunk is to be packed in silver paper and put in the fridge for at least 2 hours - else the dough will not work.

After some hours take out the first chunk of cooled dough and carefully roll it flat, using extra flour on the table and the roller. Work quickly, or else the dough will take on the surrounding temperatures and once the dough gets warm, it will not be used without breaking.
Punch out figures and forms into cookies from the cooled dough. You can re-use the rest of the dough, roll it out again and punch out new forms until dough is finished.
Use the other dough chunks one after another.

Put the figures/forms/cookies on an oven plate; keep apart from each other. Kids will happily help you out!
Put the cookie plate in the oven at 180 C for about 10 minutes or until turning slightly brown.

Now the cookies are ready, take out and cool off. But then it is time for the icing! That´s the part kids love the most...

To prepare icing, use powdered sugar and baking colors. You can also use different colored sugar shapes and specialized cookie toppings. Or use the egg white to paint the cookies and put some brown sugar on them.
Mix powdered sugar in a little bowl, add color or cocoa powder and 2-3 spoonful cold water. Keep stirring, or else the icing will stabilize. Cover the cookies with the icing and the colored sugar bits. Leave to dry a safe place.

My son Abdallah made these cookies December 21, 2006. Keep the cookies in a tight sealed jar; and they can last for months - except they usually don´t when you have kids in the house. Happy holidays!

Traditional Lasagna

Another easy recipe; traditional lasagna Libyan style with lotsa chili. Only difficult thing is the white sauce. To make lasagna from the beginning produces a much more tastier one than if you are using ready-made sauce mix. You´ll need:

1) Lasagna plates (or any other pasta of your choice)

2) White sauce: melting fat (butter or ghee), 4-5 spoonful of flour, 2 liters fat milk, salt, pepper, cinnamon, parmesan cheese (grinded)

3) Red sauce: 1 kilo minced meat, 4 big onions, 4-5 garlic cloves, 2 cans of red tomatoes, a small can of red tomato paste, salt, pepper, chili - or any other greens of your choice (such as carrots or mushrooms)- use the spices you like, such as oregano, basil, laurel or Libyan bzar.

First: chop the greens and the onions and the chili and garlic. Then brown them in a pot. Add the minced meat and brown it in the pot. Add the tomatoes (chopped in a kitchen machine), the spices, the tomato paste and some water. Leave to simmer in the pot hald an hour.

Second: now to the white sauce. Melt the fat in the pot, when the fat is very hot, add the flour and whip it good together with the fat. Add the milk in small quantities and keep moving the milk, preferrable with a wooden spoon, otherwise the milk could burn. When you´ve added all the milk, keep stirring and add the cinnamon, salt and some pepper. Let the cheese melt in the hot milk; keep stirring. When the brew finally starts to bubble, take off the heat.

How to arrange the lasagna: in a big, deep pan pour some of the white sauce until it just covers the bottom. Then place the lasagna plates. Pour red sauce on top of the lasagna plates; then add another set of lasagna plates. Keep adding layers of red sauce and lasagna plates until you reach the brim of the sauce pan.

Now pour all the white sauce on top and let it rest for some time (15 minutes). Then sprinkle the top white sauce layer with oregano and parmesan cheese. Put in oven at 200 degrees C a little hour until top is lovely brown and the top lasagna plates are firm and juicy. Leave 15 minutes out of oven before serving with green salad.