The meal we had today is an attempt to copy a dish I first tried in one of the Italian restaurants in our district. I am extremely picky as far as food is concerned, and pretty merciless when evaluating Italian restaurants. I've heard a few times that Italian food is 'the blandest' ever, sadly it was the opinion of people who know the "Italian" food merely from Italian restaurants. And those, if located outside Italy rarely can do the food justice. Luckily, we live in a 'posh" area (haha), people like to pose and splash money around, which usually is either quite entertaining, or simply sad, but on the positive side there are a few places serving decent food, including two (!) Italian restaurants.  The first time I tried the dish in question I actually just tried somebody else's meal and ended up devouring half of their food! As it sometimes happens, the meal that looks nothing-special in the menu turns out to be a masterpiece combination of sce...

Every now and then I feel a need to make fuss of a meal and go for a three dish dinner thing. Today was one of those days :) The whole meal was prepared in Italian style, however after the main we were so full that  dessert comprised only of Italian espresso, still delicious though! I got the idea for the starter from one of the Italian places we frequent for lunches and dinners - bread balls (made of pizza dough) served with pesto genovese (basil based pesto), pesto rosso (pesto with sun dried tomatoes), and salted butter. For the starter you need: about half a cup of flour a pinch of yeast salt lukewarm water or milk a splash of olive oil Mix all ingredients and knead the dough well until it's soft and playable. Sprinkle olive oil onto it place it in a bowl, and leave in a warm place to grow for about half an hour. Then form small balls and place them on a baking tray, leave some space between them as they'll grow during baking. Preheat the oven to about 180C ...

The last Thursday before the Ash Wednesday is called "Fat Thursday" in my country. It is the last Thursday of carnival, and it used to symbolise the end of the period of fun, partying and feasting, as Lent, the period of somberness and fasting was about to begin on Ash Wednesday. Long time ago, our ancestors had savoury doughnuts, made with pork fat and bacon and would consume them with large quantities of strong alcohol. The tradition of eating doughnuts on "Fat Thursday" has prevailed till this day, and there is even a superstition that if you don't have a doughnut on Fat Thursday, the rest of your year will be full of misery and misfortune! Thus, all diets have a "day off" and everybody indulges themselves in doughnuts, faworki, carnival roses and other sweets. There are long queues outside cake shops (they take orders for doughnuts a week or so in advance) and every grocery will have a good supply of doughnuts and faworki on this day. The only...

Call it a cliché, but there is no Valentine's Day without hearts all around! Though, I'm glad that the school days, when wearing red on Valentine's Day at some point become compulsory, are over! Today, however, I couldn't totally resist the spirit of the day and decided to make a heart-shaped pizza for lunch. As I mentioned in my earlier posts - weekday lunches must most of all be quick to prepare -and today was no exception. I've heard from many people that making pizza takes lots of time, but mine was ready in less than 30 minutes! I didn't leave the dough to rest too much- only as long as I needed to peel and slice the mushrooms and prepare tomato sauce (though here I took a shortcut :). The dough: All you need for is flour (probably slightly less than 0.5 kilogram, but my pizzas are made so intuitively that the proportions are nothing more than an estimate), a bit of yeast (I used dry to save time) - probably 1/4 teaspoon a dash of olive oil a pinch ...

I remember "assisting" my Nan when she was baking those delicious custard cupcakes. There was probably more disturbance than help on my side, and unfortunately I was a bit too small back then to learn how to make them properly. Now, by cupcakes I mean something sightly different to the iced sponges you see everywhere - the Polish cupcake is more of a sweet pastry case with a gooey filling - all generously dusted with enough icing sugar to give my husband a coughing fit. These days, this type of cakes is available pretty much in any cake shop, but there's nothing like home-made ones! Maybe it's just me, but that seems to be the case with all cakes - you can buy them to save yourself the hassle of preparation, but the bought ones are never quite as good. Plus, there's a part of my that will make me try to make it 'just the way it should be' :) This time though, as it sometimes happens, not everything went according to the plan. The recipe is really easy...

Italian cuisine is often to be considered to be simple. I guess it is like with elegance - simplicity is the key. Good quality, real Italian ingredients are crucial, combined with a bit a passion, and not too complex a recipe. Pronto! Though, to tell you the truth, my very first steps with Italian cuisine included ... using instant sauces ... Nowadays I can't quite comprehend how anybody can claim they taste of anything, but I guess it takes trying to "the real deal" ...   The very first thing I cooked from scratch, and we both instantly loved, was spaghetti Pomodoro e Basilico, as the Italian call it. Even though for the Italian it is "primo piato" (first dish), an introduction to the main meal, it is just the matter of the amount, as it surely can be the main meal as well! All we need is spaghetti pasta, 4-5 ripe, sweet tomatoes, 2 cloves of garlic, 1 tablespoon of passata, 1 tablespoon of olive oil, a few basil leaves, salt and pepper to seaso...

With winter still here, and with temperatures staying below zero I've got another suggestion how to keep warm on a winter night. For those who would rather opt for something more than hot chocolate, polish booze selection has plenty to choose from . Personally, in the autumn-winter season I go for two things - mulled wine (properly spiced - so as it is plenty fragrant), or better still - mead! I don't think I need to describe mulled wine to anyone, though mead deserves a brief description as it's not quite as widely known, yet it is one of the products my home country takes pride in! Also known as "drinking honey" or "honey wine", mead used to be a traditional drink in Medieval European countries (especially Poland and Lithuania), where monks used to keep bees for wax, and mead was basically a by-product, believe it on not! It is an alcoholic drink created by combining fermented honey with water, and it often co...

It's hard to believe that it took until now to see some snow this winter! No snow in December, no white Christmas, and when everybody got really and truly fed up with the omnipresent colour gray - surprise! The snow had arrived. Finally we've got the evenings with white flakes dancing outside the windows, and mornings with the whole world covered with white fluff. There's always been something magical about snow for me. I've always loved  wrapping myself in a warm blanket and sipping hot cocoa or chocolate while looking at the white painted world outside.  Speaking of hot choccy, I've got a great recipe for a winter cuppa for two, or two servings for one, since it's that good! It really is dead easy to prepare and there's no way to spoil it, no matter how much of a cooking klutz one might be! Better still - I've hear that not only is it delicious, but apparently there's something about the way the fats from chocolate and milk combine in th...