Cooking Shmooking: Let's begin!

Today I'm coming to you with yet another new series! Tilen and I have recently started cooking, or at least trying to do it. We're complete beginners, so right now we're using recipes from blogs and sites. We decided to share our progress with you, show you the recipes we're using and how they came out. Each recipe will be linked to their respectful website, and I also added Tilen's opinion on the things that we made. I hope you like this new series and our trials and errors. Expect a new post every two weeks or so, and please please please, tell us what you think in the comments! :)

Cinnamon and Thyme's Cranberry cookies

http://www.cinnamonandthyme.com/2013/02/brusnicni-piskoti-cranberry-cookies.html

The recipe is available from the beautiful blog Cinnamon and Thyme, which is, coincidentally, one of my favourite cooking blogs. It's available in both Slovenian and English, so you can all use it. ^^ 

These cookies are made with cranberries and sour cream, as well as oranges, which you can really taste. I made them with Tilen and we also added a little bit of orange juice to the mixture, but I think it made them taste and smell too much like oranges, when the emphasis should have been on the cranberries. Overall, these are simple and easy to make, and also really fun! The best part is making the cookies with your hands. Will definitely make them again, but we'll be careful how long to leave them in the oven, because there's a really thin line between not enough and too long - these were slightly burned, which is why we added the powedered sugar. Clever, aren't we? :P

What Tilen says: I think we might have made a teeny tiny mistake by adding so much orange juice, because it affected the consistency of the dough, but I think it was worth it in terms of flavour. I'm definitely up to make them again as they do have cranberries, which I obsess about & I think I should have to mention that I'm the one who ate like half a bowl of them. (And Živa's mom ate the rest. :P)

Nina in the Spring's Banana Pancakes

http://ninainthespring.blogspot.com/2013/05/banana-yum-breakfast.html

This time we used our dear friend Nina's recipe (whom we both luuuuuurve), because it looked way to good and we couldn't resist. We had these pancakes for dinner the other day, but we had quite a few problems with the dough. It was really runny, so we had some trouble forming pancakes and mostly flipping them. So we ended up mixing it all together and making a sort of scrambled banana-eggy-thingies. We added almond chips and berries (frozen, we just heated them up in the microwave), like Nina suggested, and we agreed that it was really good. Next time we'll just try to make them less runny, maybe add some more bananas and less eggs. But the taste was amazing. Also a great way to make a quick meal, because you only need eggs and bananas, and you often have those at home. Another kind of messed up recipe, but we enjoyed the result!

What Tilen says: The pancakes were really good, but they were hard to flip, so I think we could have added some flour or oats which would make them thicker. I really liked the topping, which consisted of berries and almond chips. We'll definitely make them again but maybe for breakfast rather than dinner. And it's brain food!

Moj svet kuhanja in priprave sladic's Vegan cake

http://easy-recepti.blogspot.com/2013/02/veganska-torta-vegan-cake.html

We came across this recipe on a Slovenian blog and it sounded so good, we decided to try it out ASAP. The recipe is in Slovenian, but if you're interested, you can contact me, and I'll send you the translated version. By the way, this blog has several really amazing recipes that I cannot wait to try out. All in all, this simple cake was super easy to make and tasted AH-MAZING. We all loved it! We also didn't mess up too much on it, only we could have chopped up everything even smaller. What's special about this cake is the fact that it doesn't require any baking, and it's also vegan. And really really good!

What Tilen says: This cake surprised me as it didn't require any baking. It was very fun to make as we only needed to blend and mix together the ingredients. I have to say I couldn't resist eating the dough, which, luckily for me, wasn't inedible. And I'd recommend this as a quick dessert as you only need about a half an hour to make it. If you don't like slaving over a hot stove, this is definitely the cake for you.

Okusno.je Spinach salad with pear and gorgonzola

http://okusno.je/recept/spinacna-solata-s-hrusko-in-gorgonzolo

We love fresh spinach used as salad and we had had some at home for ages, so we decided to try a new recipe. This one is from a Slovenian site, but you can just use Google Translate on it, or ask me, and I'll add a translation in this post. The salad mixes some really interesting tastes, and we were a bit doubtful about it in the beginning, but it ended up being great! The tastes really compliment each other and it tastes amazing. My mom even liked it so much that she ended up making it for some guests we had that week. Even my dad, who isn't a big salad fan, was surprisingly impressed. This is also the one recipe we didn't butcher, probably because there wasn't much that could go wrong. :P

What Tilen says: This salad really surprised me as I didn't expect the ingredients would go together. The combination really provides sweet and creamy flavours with a slight bitter aftertaste (due to the spinach). I think it should be served as a first course, but don't be surprised if you end up being full. Out of the four dishes, I would probably make this one the most often, because it's a perfect summer dish.