Speculoos doughnuts (fake muffins) and tomato sauce penne

I wish I had a dozen interesting stories to tell. Yet every time I travel is the same. Some places do change you but usually it's the others or yourself. If you are lucky, it's your own self who decides upon the change. Since I moved into my own home in November last year I started to have friends over, sometimes for dinner, sometimes for breakfast.

It's not a secret that the wine tastes better when you drink it with the people you care about and when you enjoy their company. This is how yesterday afternoon's been and this is how many days pass by in this house where there are still so many things to be done. But there is a certain peaceful rhythm, a certain silence which you recognize when you arrive home. Now, with the kitchen almost complete (I'm supposed to throw a birthday party but I have no chairs!) you can almost feel how a dream comes true.

The kitchen, so light and spacious, was what made me settle for this house. I am loving it but what I love about it is sharing these sort of moments with dear ones. Above you see the greatest oven of them all, the biggest and the greatest for cakes. Since the speculoos fake muffins (the dough is too soft to make them like doughnuts so please note you will need special trays for that or you can use your muffin trays like I did) did not get burnt, I can only imagine that, dear oven, this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

What's so special about these, you might ask. Well, just imagine that I put 4 different spices in them: cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger (powder) and white pepper. Next time I'll be even more courageous about the amount of each and make them a bit spicier.

I still have to cook the spicy quinoa whilst guacamole is a regular and there's no secret about what makes a perfect guac.

Melt some dark chocolate (I always go for the perfect dark chocolate with let's say 4 or 5 ingredients) and add some speculoos spread. You get the recipe down below so you'll understand the whole speculoos deal.

I also made some pasta, but nothing fancy about these, just regular tomato sauce with basil and some red wine. They were good but there's other pasta recipes to be featured here. So this was a basic Sunday afternoon. Some good friends moved back to Bucharest so we had to catch up a bit the long distances adventures.

And now for those who waited: Recipe here! Enjoy and don't forget to drop some feedback on the recipe if you decide to make the doughnuts!

NOTES on the recipe:

I used regular milk and yogurt and they turned up just fine. Vegan milk and yogurt maintain stronger flavour so you can use them if you fancy or you are a vegan.