peanut butter is expensive in mongolia

which means that no-bake cookies are not really a cost-effective option here. 1/2 cup of peanut butter is a lot to use for a batch of cookies. Especially since Hol and I try to stretch our little containers of peanut butter imported from Mexico as far as we can.

However, nutella-like things are relatively abundant and not too expensive. So when we happened to have a jar of that around and a craving for no-bake cookies, nutella became our peanut butter substitute.



if you don't like chocolate, these cookies are not for you. if you do, enjoy :-)

perhaps next time I'll use 1/4 cup peanut butter and 1/4 cup nutella. peanut butter/nutella no-bake cookies anyone?

(thanks to Heather who took the pictures while we made the cookies and then let me steal them to post this :- ))

taco time.

Special Edition: Cooking Class.

Recently I started a cooking class on Fridays. It started with a simple request to learn how to make cake we soon realized it was too much fun not to make it a part of our weekly schedule. So far, we've learned French food and Mexican food. It has turned out to be the ladies of the church and I cooking and then sitting down to share a meal together and talk. It has been more of a blessing to me than to them, I think. I'm beginning to think that is what "mission" is all about anyway. We are supposed to be infinitely blessed by the people that God has surrounded us with, they are there to teach us and point us back to Him with gracious hearts.

Here are some pictures from our Mexican Friday.

Rolling out the tortillas...

...cooking the tortillas...

...ready for another...

...mmm...peppers and onions...

...taco time!

We had a lot of fun making the tortillas and then making the tacos. Next week...Italian food.

3 apples can totally become a pie

a different crust recipe this time around, but same filling recipe from thanksgiving. it calls for 8 apples, but we only had three. cutting up the apples into thin slices helped make up for the lack of heaping piles of apples.

before baking:
after baking:

this recipe is the first I've ever used that calls for the sugars and butter to be heated on the stove top and then poured over the apples/lattice crust. this makes the lattice crust all kinds of delicious as the sugars solidify on top and seep down into the apples.

next time I think I'll make sure we have more apples (this pie was an impromptu dessert and not planned) on hand....and I'll definitely re-use this crust recipe- it's flakier than the thanksgiving pie's and it still doesn't require shortening (which is not readily accessible here).