Broccoli, Chickpeas and Sweet Potato

This "salad" is a lovely option if you want something veggie, easy and quick - but very filling. All you really have to do is to chop up all the veggies, sprinkle a bit of oil on top and place it in the oven, done! I have finally got a grip on my schedule in my final year, so hopefully I will also be able to post all the recipes that I have lined up :)

Plum Cake

One thing certainly in season at the minute are plums, or any variations thereof, and I was lucky enough to get a whole 1.5 kg from my friend - to turn into a delicious plum cake :) This recipe uses yeast as a raising agent, please do not make the mistake I made and overheat it whilst letting it prove, and you will get a cake twice as high as mine ;) Dough recipe found here.

Italian Bread Salad

I'm not entirely sure why exactly this salad is called what it is called, but rest assured it is incredibly tasty! My godmother found the recipe online (here) and made it for a lovely barbecue, and because it is so good I decided to take some pictures and post it on here :)

Lemon Madeleines

I have found this beautiful madeleine mould  in my godmother's kitchen (currently spending a couple of weeks here) and still had a lemon left over, so I decided to whisk up some light lemon madeleines :) Basically I had a look around for recipes Google would suggest, and decided to make a mixture of all of them and just go with it.. All of these were rough measurements as I didn't have scales at hand, but somehow it all turned out fine so I hope yours do too!

P.S. If you're wondering how come the quality of my pictures improved so much - it didn't, I let my sister take the pictures since she got a new camera :)

Bruschetta

This is a lovely quick and easy recipe, great for starters or just a quick snack inbetween. Probably not the "original" Italian way to do it, but it was very tasty :) This was a recipe made back in France, slowly blogging all of the remaining ones :) Hope you enjoy!

Banana Cupcakes with Vanilla Frosting and Salted Caramel Sauce

Seeing as I have recently posted a salad, I think it's okay to post a dessert again :D Here are some incredibly moist, utterly delicious banana cupcakes, topped off with a vanilla frosting and accompanied by an indulgent salted caramel sauce (from here). If this isn't tasty I don't know what is :)

 

Kisir / Couscous Salad

Before you start: I do know traditional Kisir is made with Bulgur, but I didn't have any at hand and think that Couscous works just fine :) another disclaimer: this is my personal version of Kisir, no intention to upset any other cooks out there who do it differently :) I served it as a side for a barbecue evening and thought it went really well with the meat, though on its own the next day it was delicious as a summer salad :)

Carrot Cake

Again, a recipe I made quite a long time ago and didn't have the time to blog.. I decided to take the best bits out of a couple of recipes (here, here and here) and based on that inspiration make my own, so here we go for a very very moist and carroty (you can definitely taste the carrots!!) carrot cake, that is not as dark as some may know (if you use muscovado or brown sugar I think it will be a bit darker), but was very yummy nevertheless :)

Pecan Pie

I have a couple of recipes I still need to blog, but haven't really had the time during exams. This one is from my friend Hendrik again, who has made this lovely and delicious Pecan Pie over in the States :) Hope you enjoy!

Mars Cake

I have actually made this cake last year but completely forgot to blog it, so here we go! For anyone liking Mars bars, or just wishing to try out an incredibly rich chocolate and caramel cake, this would be the perfect recipe :) I took this recipe as a basis :) Hope you enjoy!

Rice Salad with Fish and Grapes

This salad is not your traditional leafy green salad, rather a very fancy but really easy rice salad with fish and grapes. We had it for christmas, and I only now managed to get around typing the recipe up :) Technically it is made with couscous I believe, but substitute for whatever you fancy (rice works really well :) ) Here you go!

Russischer Zupfkuchen (Chocolate and Vanilla Cheesecake)

Finally finished exams and back to blogging :) This was a cheesecake I made on New Years Eve, and it seriously can't get much better than this! A chocolate base, lovely vanilla filling and chocolate "sprinkles" on top - a Russian "pluck" cake would be the literal translation. It takes a bit of time to prepare, but the end result is definitely worth it! Here's how you make it :)

Baked Salmon

The main dish we had for Christmas was a baked salmon (I think I mentioned that in Poland you only eat fish at Christmas, which is on the 24th). I had seen the version that the Sorted guys did and decided to give it a go. It's incredibly easy, especially since you only have to prepare the salmon and then let it bake in the oven whilst you can concentrate on other things :)

Szarlotka (Polish Apple Cake)

Szarlotka is a traditional Polish apple cake and there are as many ways of making it as there are grandmas (and granddads!) to make them :) My grandma used to make one with a light mousse of egg whites, unfortunately, I have not found the recipe yet but once I do I will share it with the world on here :D It seriously was the best apple cake I have ever eaten! This is one is not bad either, don't get me wrong :) Here's how to make it! P.S. I apologise I don't have a photo of a slice of the cake, it was gone too quickly, but I am certain you'll all be able to imagine the delicious 3 layers of shortcrust pastry, apple filling and crumble top :)

Pierogi 2 (with Sauerkraut and Mushrooms)

As another entrée we had Pierogi filled with Sauerkraut and Mushrooms, this is the typical "christmassy" filling for pierogi in Poland. I absolutely love them, though considering the amount of food there was to eat, I wasn't able to eat too many..

Uszka (Polish dumplings filled with mushrooms)

I hope that you have all spent a lovely christmas with your families, or if you don't celebrate christmas or celebrate something else, I hope that you have had a lovely week either way :) Fortunately, I got to spend christmas with my mum and my sister, we were supposed to drive to Poland to see my granddad but unfortunately our car broke down. This meant that I had the wonderful task of cooking 12 courses at home (it's a tradition that you have to have at least as many dishes as the number of apostles), and in my family, Barszcz (a beetroot soup, very well known in Central and Eastern Europe that I bought this year (I had nearly no time to prepare!) with "Uszka" are always the first dish. Uszka are small dumplings filled with mushrooms, kind of like Pierogi but smaller and in a different shape. They are incredibly tasty nevertheless :) I'm not sure how much more from the christmas recipes I will post on here since many of them are quite particular and I think ingredients could be quite hard to buy at some places but I'll definitely post Christmas Pierogi and 2 desserts from our meal.

 

Vanillekipferl

There are tons of different recipes for vanillekipferl, either using just a shortbread cookie dough and then covering the little moon shaped cookies in vanilla sugar once they've come out of the oven, or ones that also mix in some nuts, like this one :)

Coconut Macaroons

These lovely little treats are really easy to whip up and take no time at all in the oven, and best of all: they're really delicious :) Cover them in chocolate if you like or have them as they are, either way I am sure you'll enjoy them!

Shortbread Cookies

Sorry for the delay in uploading these, the past weeks have been pretty hectic and I also travelled back home for christmas :) Nevertheless, I hope you will still have some time to try these easy shortbread cookies out (or Butterplätzchen as Germans call them) :)
The ratio is always 3:2:1:1, flour, butter, sugar, eggs so just calculate the amount that you will need :) The batch that I did was enough for about 4 baking trays full of cookies.

Apple Pie

This is a lovely apple pie that is quite easy to make :) Unfortunately, when I did mine, I couldn't use the stove to soften up the apples for the filling but I can assure you it works both ways :) If you don't cook the apples it won't be as level, but who cares about presentation when it tastes amazing? :D Also, my tin was 20cm in diameter, the bigger your tin the lower the pie :)