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 :)

Pesto Bread

Last Friday, Mika and Liz decided to host a little pre-Christmas party to get us all in the festive spirit :) (we have exams next week, or at least some of us, so this was an incredibly welcome break!) I decided that there wasn't going to be a better opportunity to cook and bake again, so I decided to contribute a pesto bread and a few other goodies to the meal. With the help of my amazing assistant Lucia, we managed to get everything done almost in time :)

As a side, I opted for a pesto bread that I found here. It looks pretty cool I find, and I can assure you it tastes great!

Nut-Banana-Chocolate Cake

... or in other words: Christina's birthday cake :) Please excuse the quality of the pictures, we celebrated in a small Irish pub and lighting wasn't exactly great and we had no plates either :) But hey, all that matters was the taste, and it seem to be the overwhelming opinion that it was indeed very tasty :) I found the recipe here :)

Placki Jablkowe (Apple pancakes)

I first ate these apple pancakes at my Polish grandma's :) I absolutely loved them and decided to make some for a dessert last week, when we had that Slavic evening :) This recipe was my orientation.

Polish Traditional Salad (Salatka jarzynowa)

I am very sorry for the lack of posts recently, either I have been very busy with university or our kitchen in the residence was closed.. but last weekend we migrated to a different kitchen and held a Slavic evening, cooking lots of fine foods and inviting people over to taste them :) My contribution was this Polish traditional salad, incredibly easy to make and quickly consumed :)

Kartoffelpuffer (Potato "pancakes")

Last week, Christina and I organised a German evening at our residence and cooked German food for this occasion :) Below you'll find a recipe that has several names, I call it Kartoffelpuffer, and is usually eaten with apple purée or apple sauce :)

Brownies

First of all, I am sorry I haven't posted in a while. I have moved to France for my year abroad and turns out that I don't have an oven in the shared kitchen in my accommodation so unfortunately no baking for me this year (unless I perfect microwave baking :D) so I'm not sure how much I'll be able to post in the future..

As for this recipe, that belonged to the section quite long ago when I had my goodbye party and baked quite a lot. It is a really indulgent brownie recipe and quite easy to do :)

Zebra Cake

This is a very delicious vanilla and chocolate cheese cake that I served at my birthday party :) The zebra pattern is actually not too difficult to achieve but may take a bit of time. Recipe found here (a very great cooking channel on youtube if you speak German :) )

Best Chocolate Cookies Ever!

Another one of those titles, I know, but again I promise you won't be disappointed with these cookies! The centre melts in your mouth and they just have the perfect texture and they're one of the most delicious cookies I have ever made :) Recipe found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvIG7R8DOqU

Spaghetti Bolognese

First of all, sorry for the lack of posts recently! I have been really busy and am scared and excited at the same time to move to France soon!

Back to this dish: a classic all of us know, this version is the fast studenty version I'd say (if I make fancy spag bol it would take between 2-3 hours, this one about 30 minutes) and I hope you'll like it :)

Japanese cuisine

I came back from my adventure this summer very recently (which is why I haven't posted in a while) and would like to share some more of my culinary experiences whilst in Asia. This time, from Japan :) Once again, I have not documented every single dish that I ate, and with these ones the names are a bit difficult as well so I might have to add them later, once I know the exact Japanese one :)

Oreo Chocolate Cheesecake Muffins

Since I am still away on holiday (in Japan at the moment), Hendrik agreed to cook/bake a little more and he generously lets me post the recipes on here :) Thanks a lot! Here's the first one: Oreo Chocolate Cheesecake Muffins!

Thai cuisine

I have recently been on a 2 week holiday in Thailand, in Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Koh Phangan to be precise, and wanted to share some of the cuisine I had the opportunity to experience :)

Pancakes with Strawberries

A nice and reasonably light summer dish - pancakes with strawberries :) I haven't found a fail-proof recipe for pancakes yet, but this one is pretty good :) Disclaimer: this is not an American style pancake, rather closer to a French crêpe, however, not thin enough to be called a crêpe in my opinion, so there you go :D

Vanilla Macarons

These vanilla macarons are a little piece of heaven – very light, great tasting little treats! They’re not too complicated to make either, if you follow this recipe step-by-step :) Thank you Ed for this recipe :)

The Absolute Best Chocolate Cake Ever!

You may think that I may be pushing it with this title, but I cannot write anything else than in the highest tones of this cake! It is from Nigella Lawson's "Nigella Bites" and originally called a Chocolate Fudge Cake I believe, but this is seriously underestimated! I have been baking this cake for years now and it never, even once, failed or failed to impress! This particular one I made for my best friend's birthday, Happy Birthday Jonas by the way :) I hope you enjoy!