Penne with tomato, basil & Mozarrella also some German Christmas sweets

The chicken stock I made yesterday was cooled down and assembled into a few different tapper ware and stored in the freezer. I am happy to have my chicken stock in the freezer. It is much better than the store bought stock. Now, I wonder what I should make with these chicken stock.

When I went to Costco the other day, this big package of cherry tomato caught my eyes. I normally don't buy groceries too much from Costco since it is too big but I just couldn't help it this time. I bought this beautiful cherry tomatoes.

There is nothing to compare in the picture so it might be hard to tell how big it is but it is pretty big package.

I was thinking what I can make from these cherry tomatoes. I had basil and mozzarella cheese leftovers so I decided to make pasta with them. Tomato, Basil and Mozzarella is always great combination, right?

It is just a simple pasta dish so I don't know if I can call this recipe but I will just write down because it was pretty good.

Ingredients (for 2~3 people)
Cherry Tomato about 20
Garlic 1 clove
Olive Oil 2 Table Spoons
Penne 300g
Basil about 8 big leaves
Mozzarella about 1/3 cup
Chicken stock 1 ladle
Red wine 1/3 cup
Red chili flakes a pinch
salt a pinch
pepper a pinch


1. First, cut the cherry tomatoes into half, cut basil into small pieces, cut Mozzarella cheese into small pieces, chop garlic into small pieces.

2. Boil water in a pot and make Penne.

3. While Penne is cooking, prepare frying pan and add some Olive oil and heat. When the pan is hot, add tomatoes and saute until soft. When the tomatoes are soft, add garlic and red wine. Cook until there is not more liquid. (I was just drinking wine when I cook this so I added some wine but I don't think you need to use wine for this if you don't have it handy.)

4. Drain Penne and add Penne into the pan and mix them.

5. Add chicken stock into the pan (Again, I used chicken stock here because I had chicken stock which I made yesterday right next to me when I was cooking this dish so if you don't have chicken stock handy, I think pasta water will do. )

6. Add basil, mozzarella, red chili flakes, salt and pepper and mix well. When the cheese melt, it is ready to eat!

It is simple but taste awesome! I think cherry tomato is sweeter than regular tomato so it is not sour when you make pasta sauce with cherry tomato. I like it!

Anyway, I also would like to share some photo of German Christmas sweets. I believe those are sweets which Germans eat during Christmas time.

My favorite is this one called "Dominos". It is difficult to explain what it is but it has some kind of cake and jelly into. It taste very Christmassy and I like it a lot. When you start eating this, it is difficult to stop!

Next one is Lebkuchen. I don't quite remember how this taste. I don't remember what's in it. I know I had it before but I don't remember. I am pretty surprised because normally my memory is pretty good when it comes to food :-) Well, I have to open this one and find out how it was.

Also, we got something like this. I am not quite sure if this is a Christmas sweets but it looks like it. And it is heart shape. Isn't it cute? I think this will also be great decoration for the table. I am pretty sure I like this one because it looks similar to Dominos inside on the photo. I can not wait to try it :-)

We don't have Stollen yet this year. I think some brand is really good and some are not so good. So I have to careful when I pick Stollen. I will let my husband (the expert) pick the stollen for me since I have no clue which brand is good. Hope we will be able to find a good Stollen for the Christmas. I like eating Stollen little by little everyday :-)