Sugar Cookies!

I don't know why I love sugar cookies so much...

Any taste, any shape, any size... They are so versatile and you can play all you want with them.
I have a basic recipe and I work from that.
I like experimenting with flavours, icings and anything else I can think of!


I have made cinnamon flavour and I painted on them to resemble Dutch Porcelain!

One of my favourite is the Very vanilla sugar cookie, because I double the amount of vanilla essence. On these I used sugar paste tinted in assorted colours.
And I made them double deckers for double pleasure!

I also made apples, oranges and pears with vanilla flavour!
I decorated them with royal icing.

These "2"s are lemon sugar cookies, for which I used lemon zest, a couple of lemon juice drops and lemon enhanced vanilin.

As you can see, the "left overs" from the "2"s were filled with red & pink crushed candy and then baked, because I wanted to get this window glass effect!

Well, these are very cute. Honey sugar cookies!
I substituted some sugar for honey, cut small strips, rolled them and voila!

These are what I call, the healthy sugar cookie, made with dark brown sugar.
These are the ones I bake for Ioanna.
You cannot believe their smell!

These are a little strange. They are Green Tea sugar cookies. I tinted the dough green and the aroma of green tea comes from the sugar. I put a couple of green tea bags in a container with plain white sugar and left it closed for about a week. When I opened it, the smell was great!
The green tea taste of the cookies was not so intense, but I liked the result, so I will make them again, using a different technique, using green tea butter!

These are Ioanna's cookies!!!
I made the dough a little softer than it is normally, we rolled them and shaped them (both Ioanna and I), put some coloured RI roses on top, small pieces of marzipan (no, I didn't give her any marzipan, she is too young for nuts) and homemade pink sprinkles!
Oh, they were a hit!

I have many more ideas that I can't wait to try!!!!


P.S.
I know I haven't mentioned any cocoa or chocolate. This is because I haven't tried to make my sugar cookie recipe using cocoa powder yet and also because I have found a chocolate cookie recipe that I think I like best.
I will come back on that subject!

Office Outfit of the week!

 

I really like grey.
It is a colour for every season, versatille and easy to
accessorize.
Therefore it is used often!

I like it with yellow. It brightens everything in the outfit!

Office Outfit of the week!

 

This week my favourite outfit was again my black dress!
I added a few details in pink and voila! Ready for the office!

Office Outfit of the week!

 

This week I chose a loose comfortable version of the little
black dress, with simple gold accessories, flat sandals and
the classic Louis Vuitton Speedy 30 bag with my initials
painted on.

Office Outfit of the (previous) week!

 

Last week I chose the little white dress for a "first week back
from my holiday" look!

Simple and comfortable!

Back to my routine!

Well, I am back. My summer holidays are over...

I am both sad and happy. Sad because we had a really lovely time and happy because we returned home. I always have these mixed feelings at the end of my vacation.

For the first part of our vacation we went to my parents' summer house up in the mountains. Ah, the cool climate, no air conditioning, a light blanket at night.... It is so refreshing up there! And about 15 minutes away from the beach, too!

My parents decided to plant a veggie garden this year, along side with their fruit trees.

Tomatoes.

Cucumbers.

Green peppers.

Courgettes.

Onions.

Red currants.

Cherries.

And more of course, but I didn't get any pictures.


Ioanna had a great time. She would ask for red currants all the time, so I went to the bush, cut some currants, washed them in the garden tap and she ate them right there.
We also had a special basket for Ioanna to hold and we went to pick ripe tomatoes, onions, cucumbers and peppers for a fresh healthy Greek salad (for which we used locally produced feta cheese from the near by village).

The next part of our vacation was spent by the sea.
We went to Kymi where we met up with family from G's side (cousins, my parents-in-law, aunts, etc.). We stayed at a hotel right by the sea. The beach was 1 minute away to walk but we also had the option of the pool, the kiddy pool that is! Ioanna would not come out!

Our balcony.

My Ioanna!

Do you see the children's pool? My little girl loved it!

This is our view.

Proudly standing in front of the hotel.

This is the sea side restaurant we were going for our late lunches. It is called "Skyros" and the food is amazing. Fresh fish and lobsters and anything else that the fishing boat brought back early in the morning!


I do pray that we can do this again next year! We had a very good time and we got to be all day with our Ioanna. Since G. and I both work, we really needed that...

Off to work now!

Office Outfit of the week!

 
 It's a light outfit that suits this heat!!!!!

Enriching an outfit with red details is actually a favourite
of mine!