My sister Hesty was asked to make belgian waffles as a special pre-party brunch treat for a good friend. After much searching and digging, she found this recipe that knocked the socks off everyone :)

During his travels in Morocco, RubyStarfire was introduced to tagines. They are absolutely amazing! They are delicious and easy to make. The word actually refers to both the thing it's cooked in (see photo above) and the food cooked in it. The shape of the tagine allows for the food to be steamed and constantly self-marinated leaving you with soft tasty food in a rich sauce. When it's done cooking, you take the cone-shaped lid off and serve the food in the bottom of the dish it cooked in. Make sure you have a loaf of bread on hand to pick up the food with and eat!

You don't have to cook just tagines inside of a tagine or just use a tagine to cook tagines! A tagine is essentially a stew, so you can cook any stew in a tagine. You can also cook any tagine in a skillet or pot in the oven, but you lose the atmosphere the tagine would bring to the table.

Mini tagine cellars also come in two's or three's connected to each other; these are used in place of salt and pepper shakers. Pepper is hard to find in these, however. Two mini tagine cellars like the image to the left will have salt and cumin inside. If there is a third tagine cellar, it might contain pepper or whatever the restaurant or household decides to keep in them. Ruby has a small rounded tagine that he keeps his coffee sugar cubes in.

My sister Hesty can get really picky about recipes. She wants recipes that are usable and reasonable to make. She's come across all sorts of brownie recipes that are far from usable: melt three kinds of chocolate, find a butter with a particular fat content, mix butter and oil, use two different kinds of flowers, etc. She hates all that extra work; once in awhile it actually makes the food better, but usually it just makes things more complicated and a large mess in the sink for later. She finally found a recipe that's easy and tasty *I can vouch for that ;)*

This was also Hesty's first time using a springform pan, the kind of pan that's like a puzzle. I personally don't think the bottom of a pan should be able to fall off, but she's the cook. She did say she'll probably use the tart pan for the next batch of brownies.

These are the very first things that my sister Hesty made when she got her hands on an oven here. There's just nothing like home made chocolate chip cookies, and you can't find them outside of the United States. Even the ones you find in bakeries just aren't real chocolate chip cookies; they're cookies alright, and they're often yummy, but they aren't chocolate chip cookies. The recipe Hesty used isn't anything special, just a modification of the old Nestle one, but that's what makes a home made chocolate chip cookie :) 
**she does have some tricks she uses for these, but she won't share them with me :(*

My sister Hesty got tired of only finding those blueberry muffins that taste like sugared oil or have that crumb topping on them. Outside of the United States, it's hard to find blueberry muffins that are just blueberries with nothing weird like white chocolate or crushed nuts. She picked up some frozen blueberries and started whipping up a batch of fresh muffins. The only problem is the frozen blueberries had thawed, so the muffins are purple inside. They still taste good, though :)

The other day my sister Hesty made some delicious madeleine muffins. Since then, people have been asking and asking and asking for the recipe. It took awhile and a lot of convincing because Hesty can be shy at times, but she finally agreed to share the recipe. You owe me for this! ;)

**This recipe came from a friend of RubyStarfire who got it from a close family friend.**

My sister Hesty was going to cook some madeleines first thing today, so I snuck into the kitchen and hid this in the cupboard:

She shrieked and nearly dropped everything on the floor! I almost feel sorry for her, seeing this first thing in the morning before she's even made the coffee, but she wouldn't let me lick the spoon when she was done :(

This is a canister for Sucre Glace from France, called Powdered or Confectioner's Sugar in the United States. I don't know if I should be disturbed by how much fun it is to twist the top of his head (the pink ring) and watch the sifted powdered sugar fall out of his head. It's like the little goblin is the opposite of a rock star: the white powder comes out of the head instead of going in.

Oh, Hesty did make the madeleine muffins and she even let me have one, but I had to wait until last :( Meanie!

Thank you Hesty! I love you! Mouah! *nibble*