Fridays with Beatrice: Tartines with avocado and shrimps & white chocolate, oat and cranberries cookies

Another bunch of recipes to try from Bea's cookbook. Luckily Lena chose (again) some I could make too. Really, I am glad she could motivate me to bake and cook again because it gets harder and harder at the moment. My feet looked like bloated marshmallows afterwards from standing the whole time, but it was totally worth it. 

The first course were tartines with avocado - or so to say - guacamole and shrimps. The guacamole was made with lime and cilantro and seasoned with cayenne pepper which I found very tasty. Unfortunately there is no way to get fresh shrimps around here, so I had to use frozen ones which (as you might imagine) do not taste as good as fresh ones. I served both not as suggested on a kind of baguette which we like to buy fresh on our shopping day (because it just tastes good when its fresh). I guess rye bread would have enhanced the flavour, but we liked it as it was.

The second course were cookies with white chocolate and cranberries. I've made such cookies before (recipe in German) and didn't found them very appealing. But this recipe was different - the cookies are gluten-free and you use three different kind of flours which give the cookies a very nutty flavour. Also they contain lots of almonds which changes the texture. They do not spread that much and do not become as flat as the ones I made before. I used my hands (not a spoon) to get evenly sized and shaped cookies which worked great. They turned out the size and height of those 'American-style' cookies you can buy at the store but tasted a thousand times better! My hubby was standing in front of the oven, watching them and asking eagerly when they would be ready. I don't need to mention he barely could wait until they were cold ...

Roundup: Tartines - Unless I can get hold of fresh shrimps, I won't make this again, but guacamole with cilantro and lime tastes great. Definitively something I should remember.

Cookies - Those are cookies I consider 'American-style'. Will make them again - maybe with less sugar and dried cherries, but that are cookies that deserve the name.