Simplest plum cake

Simplest plum cake

I was down yesterday. Simply, humanly down. The world was all wrong, people bad, everything distorted. With the last spark of common sense I remembered the words of the Working Woman from "The 40year-old Guy" ( Polish cult film), that the best thing for troubles is plum cake. Naturally, in my state I was not up to making a yeast dough, so u took the easiest way out. Perhaps it was not as great as the yeast one, but after the first bite- it helped!
PS. And today, when the sun shines, it is a perfect combination!:-)








"Plum cake"

- 225 g flour
- 3 tsp baking powder
- 140 g sugar
- 90 g soft butter
- 1/2 glass of milk
- 1 egg
- canelle and sugar to sprinkle
- halved plums, with stones removed

Blend butter and sugar in the mixer, add the flour, baking powder, butter, milk, and the egg. 
Butter the tin well, pour in the dough. Smooth and decorate with plums skin  down. Sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon. Bake for 40 minutes in 180 C. You may sprinkle with almonds towards the end of baking. 

Apple liqueur

Apple liqueur



Yes, apples make for an excellent liqueur too. Not to mention the delicious seed liqueur, for which I've been collecting apple seeds for the past half year. Last autumn I prepared a fruit one and I have been enjoying this flavoured addition to coffee, or to any dessert, until today. The guests do not complain either:-)










"Apple liqueur"



- 1 kilo apples without stalks
- 1/2 litre vodka
- 1/2 litre brandy
- 1/4 litre spirits to boost taste (optional)
- 1/2 glass sugar and 3/4 glass water
- a stick of canella or two cloves, optional

Quarter the fruit or cut into smaller pieces, keep the seeds. Put them in a jar, add the different alcohols and leave, tightly closed, for about a month. You may add a canella stick. 
After a month dissolve sugar in boiling water, leave to cool and add to the apple and alcohol mixture. Wait for another month. 
Pour all into bottles and keep tightly closed for a few months. The longer the better. A good lesson of patience:-)

Potato and beans purée

Potato and beans purée



How to smuggle an unpopular yet healthy dish to the plates of my boys so that they don't notice? You need to hide it in another dish, of course. I've been grateful since long to inventors of mixers and other kitchen robots, which simplified all the tiresome actions (which, by the way, used to integrate people forced to do them, such as creaming the eggs the traditional way;-) into pressing one button. But what was I going to write about?
Oh yes, how to hide beans in potatoes;-)











"Potato and beans purée"



- 1/2 kilo potatoes
- 250 g white canned beans
- 1 finely chopped onion
- 1 large garlic clove
- salt and pepper
- good olive oil

Boil the potatoes, without removing skin, until soft. Peel, add the beans. In the meantime fry onions and garlic in olive oil. Mix all together, add salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot as a side dish or on its own, for dinner for example. 

Pear tart

Pear tart

My piano teacher told me to learn only left hand for revolutionary étude by heart. Left ONLY. That's worse than rote learning for three hands! Boring. Everything repeats with only small modifications and I am supposed to remember where. With the right dynamic, of course. So I prepared Bach. Apparently each lesson is to begin with Bach, like in this song;-)
I needed to get rid of this first impression so I baked a pear tart. It will help the lesson start smoothly, I hope:-)









"Pear and yogurt tart"

- 4 peeled pears, cut in halves and deseeded
- juice of one lemon
- 100 g sugar
- 2 tbsp butter

- 230 g wheat flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp powdered chilli
- 2 eggs
- 130 ml thick yogurt
- 140 g butter
- 150 g sugar
- vanilla flavour

Sprinkle the pears with lemon juice and cook in a pot with 2 tbsp of butter and 100 g sugar for circa 15 minutes. 
Mix butter and sugar until smooth, add eggs, the other dry ingredients, flavour and yogurt. 

Leave the pears to cool down, put in a buttered tin, pour in the rest of the caramel. Place the dough on top and put in a preheated oven. Bake for circa 50 minutes in 180-190 C. 

Multicoloured semolina

Multicoloured semolina

My sons look down on me. In the physical sense of course... although who knows what they're thinking.  Perhaps the taller the wiser? Lets let life itself verify it;-) Still, both of them come to me sometimes asking to cook semolina for them. Seems easy enough. Yet what are the perfect proportions?












"Multicoloured semolina"


Semolina

- 1/2 litre milk
- 4.5 tbsp semolina 
- a pinch of salt
- tsp butter

To colour:
- yolk
- red fruit juice
- cacao

Start heating the milk, put semolina stirring continuously to avoid clusters and salt lightly. When semolina starts getting thick add a table spoon of butter to give it velvety flavour. 

Yellow: take off the heat and add yolk stirring energetically to avoid clusters. 

Brown: add cocoa and stir

Pink: pour in some juice and stir. 

Seems so easy yet so much fun. I fed all my small eater cousins with such mixtures. I was only praying they would not ask for blue;-)

Pancakes with ricotta and courgette

Pancakes with ricotta and courgette

Oh, I know that I am repeating myself. Privilege of old age;-) It is so nice though, when friends drop in for dinner! I wanted to prepare something relatively light so that they have room for the cake at dessert.  I went along vegetarian path, which turned out a good choice. Not only the cake was appreciated, a small glass of lavender liqueur was too. It made a huge impression. So much so that I am not sure anyone will ask for it again;-)))










"Pancakes with ricotta"

- 300 g flour
- 1/2litre milk
- 3 eggs
- a few chopped mint leaves
- some chopped parsley

- 350g  courgette cut in quarters along the length and sliced
- circa 400g ricotta
- 50g almond flakes
- salt, pepper
- 1 glass full cream
- grated cheese to sprinkle

Beat the dough together with the herbs. Leave to rest for half an hour. Fry fairly thin pancakes. On a separate frying pan fry the courgettes in butter, add ricotta and almonds, then salt and pepper to taste.

Place some filling on each pancake and form triangles. Put in a greased container, pour the cream on top and sprinkle with grated cheese.  Bake all in an oven for 20 minutes and serve hot.

Chickpea soup

Chickpea soup

Funny how chickpea disappeared from our tables. When I serve it, everyone asks me what it is. I left one pea for demonstration purposes, what makes everybody laugh. The pea changes hands and is subject to careful analysis. ( It looks like a dry pea with a small tail). And? Still no one knows what it is. To tell the truth, I wouldn't either were it not for Anita's contagious passion for hummus.









"Chickpea soup"

- 1 glass chickpeas
- 2 litres water
- salt, pepper
- 1 branch of thyme, or better two
- 4 garlic cloves
- a jar of tomato purée

Soak the chickpeas in a pot of water during the night. Then cook until soft with 2 garlic cloves and a twig of thyme for nearly an hour. Take out the thyme and garlic together with a few whole peas for decoration later. Mix until smooth. In a small pan heat two tbsp olive oil, add two chopped cloves of garlic and a fresh thyme twig. Fry briefly and add tomato purée. Stir quickly as it tends to squirt! Take out the thyme and add the tomato pulp to the pot with pureed chickpea.
Serve with small pasta, then it is filling and tastes wonderful. Those on a diet may eat it without the pasta, decorated with a few entire peas and a basil leaf.

Focaccia with anchovies

Focaccia with anchovies

Focaccia is really appreciated at home. Tray after tray disappears in a blinking of an eye... all is left to do is to change the decorations. I am not a fan of anchovies myself but... well, I'll eat just about anything on a yeast cake!












"Focaccia with anchovies"

- 500  g white flour
- 30-40 g fresh yeast or 2 tsp dried yeast
- 1,3 glass warm water
- 2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1 jar of your favourite anchovies

Work the ingredients into a yeast dough and leave for at least an hour to rise. With hands dipped in olive oil stretch the dough until flat and put on a greased baking tray. Leave for 10 minutes, spread some olive oil on top and decorate with anchovies. Leave to rise for half an hour.
Put into an oven at 200 C for at least 20 minutes.

Georgian tomato salad

Georgian tomato salad

In Georgia it accompanies nearly every meal. Fresh and refreshing... Prepared with excellent, often garden-grown tomatoes. Fortunately in Poland we still have a good selection of these delicious fruit.





"Georgian tomato salad"

- 2 large tomatoes
- 1 sweet onion
- a few twigs of coriander
- 1 chilli
- salt, pepper to taste

Wash and slice the tomatoes, chop the onion finely. Remove coriander leaves. Cut the chilli in half, remove the seeds, chop finely. Mix all together. Simple but delicious!

Buckwheat pancakes

It is a healthier version of pancakes, even if children are rather unenthusiastic about it. But we, grown-ups, understand that what is healthy may be tasty all the same:-)















"Buckwheat pancakes"

- 400 g buckwheat flour
- 3/4 glass milk
- 3 eggs
- half tsp salt
- 3 tbsp oil

Top with whatever you like. I added a fried egg, some ham, a tomato, mushrooms, cheese to sprinkle.

Mix all the ingredients together until you achieve the consistency of thick yet liquid cream. You can adjust water and flour to get the right thickness. Fry thin pancakes in a large frying pan. 

Baked cheesecake with ricotta

I like a ricotta cheese. It is not so heavy and has less calories than other cheeses...

















"Baked cheesecake with ricotta "

For the dough:

-200g white flour                                    
- 100g butter
-pinch of salt
- 2 tsp sugar

for the filling:

- 500g ricotta cheese
- 100ml cream /36%/
- 3 eggs
- 130g sugar
- 3 tbsp cornflour
- 30ml liqueur /orange is the best ;)/

Mix the flour, salt, sugar and butter together. Add cold water to form a dough. Chill for 1 hour in plastic wrap in a fridge.

Heat the oven to 200stC and grease a springform tart tin. Roll out the dough and line the base and sides of the tin.

Mix the ricotta cheese with sugar, egg yolks, cornflour and liqueur.  Whisk the egg whites and gently fold into the cheese mixture.

Pour cheese into the pastry case and bake for 45 min. You may decorate with icing sugar.

Easy macaroon cake

Yesterday, while watching "Troy" again, where Brad Pitt flexes his newly pumped up muscles, my Middle One demanded a cake. Definitely and immediately. The only one I could think of baking during commercial breaks was the macaroon...












"Macaroon"

- 230g flour
- 2tsp baking powder
- pinch of salt
- 100 g sugar
- 3 egg yolks
- flavouring oil
-a little of your favourite preserve
- half glass milk
- 120g butter

For the topping:
- 3 egg whites
- 1/4 glass sugar
- half glass coconut flakes

Put butter and sugar in the kitchen robot and work until smooth, add the rest of ingredients. Pour into a fairly small, buttered tin. Add the preserve in several places. Beat the whites with sugar separately, mix with coconut flakes and decorate the top of the cake.

Bake in 180C for ca. 50 minutes. 

Salad with pear and rocket.

I am not a big fan of rocket. I can eat it in small quantities, just like pears... And yet I could eat this salad all the time...










"Salad with pear and rocket"

- rocket leaves
- roasted salmon
- 1 pear
- green roman lettuce

For the sauce: a clove of garlic crushed in a mortar, 1 tbsp honey, stir. Add freshly squeezed lemon juice or vinegar and pour. olive oil generously. Mix until you get a well balanced, sweet and sour emulsion. 

Divide the leaves and the salmon into pieces and pour over the sauce. Leave for a few moments to marinate and serve:)

Lemon foam cake

It was supposed to be a literary meeting, for expats learning Polish. Naturally, it was Iza who organised the whole thing:-)
I had a good hour in the morning to perform my "magic". Not a lot of time, so I settled for lemon foam. To sum it up, all that was left afterwards was a small piece. The choice can't have been bad, can it?












"Lemon foam "

- 6 eggs
- 250g butter
- full glass sugar
- half glass oil
- 2glasses potato starch
- half glass wheat flour
- 2 tbsp white vinegar
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tbsp fresh lemon zest
- lemon flavouring

Mix butter with sugar until smooth, add one egg at a time, add flour and baking powder, lemon zest, vinegar, oil and flavouring. Once well mixed pour into a greased baking tin and bake for 45 mins in 180C. 

Lavender scones

I love scones... especially with lavender scent. I just cut a few flowers from the garden...

















"Lavender scones"

- 230g flour
- 60g butter
- 50g sugar
- 150ml milk
- 1-2 tsp lavender flowers

Mix all the ingredients together. Roll or pat out 3cm thick. Cut into rounds. Place on a baking tray and bake for 15-20 min in an oven - 200C.

Quick blini for breakfast

Quick blini for breakfast

Although made of wheat flour, they are ready in a flash and when you add soured cream they taste divine. You may want to add sugar, even if it is not my cup of tea. 

"Quick blini for breakfast"

- 1/2 kilo flour

- 3 eggs

- 2 cups water 

- 1 tsp sugar

- 1 tsp salt

- 1/2 tsp baking soda

- 1/3 tsp citric acid to taste 

Mix all the ingredients in a kitchen robot at medium speed, add baking soda last. 

Best fried immediately, in butter. The blini will be golden and delicious. 

Leavened wheat-and-rye bread

Finally I managed to get Iwona to give me some leaven. I admit it was the first time I got to play with starter dough, which was a greyish slush that stank a bit. I knew I had to leave some of it for further baking. But when? Before I work the new dough or after? I bet on the latter version and... it was a mistake. Yet Iwona promised me another supply of her leaven. 













"Leavened wheat-and-rye bread with dried tomatoes"

-250g wholemeal wheat flour
- 200 g wholemeal rye flour
- 150 g leaven
- 1 glass warm water
- 50g sun dried tomatoes
- 100 ml olive oil from the dried tomatoes
- 1 tbsp tomato purèe
- 1 tbsp salt 

Mix the leaven with 100 ml water and 100g rye flour. Leave in a warm place for at least 12 hours. 

Mix the remaining flour with 150 ml water, add olive oil and salt. Wait for 2 hours more. 

Chop the tomatoes, add to the dough together with the purée. Place the dough in a greased baking tin, wait for 30 minutes and put in a preheated oven. Bake in 200-220C for 45 minutes. Leave to cool. 

I admit it took some time, but the result was satisfying!

Spinach with bacon, salmon, and apple

Spinach with bacon, salmon, and apple

... Not spinach again... Overrated! A nightmare of school and kindergarten canteens.  Yet a revelation with a good sauce. A new and fresh incarnation with apples and coriander is a great dish in itself. 














"Spinach with bacon, salmon, and apple"

- 1/2 kilo washed spinach leaves
- 100 g bacon cut into cubes
- 1 salmon fillet, roasted or fried
- 1 apple, pealed and very thinly sliced
- 4 tbsp olive oil
- a few coriander twigs

Place the spinach in a bowl, sprinkle with coriander.
Heat the olive oil in the frying pan, fry the bacon until the grease melts, add apple slices towards the end. Add salt and pepper to taste. Place the salmon divided into small pieces on the spinach and pour the contents of the frying pan on top. 

Quick muffins for breakfast

Quick muffins for breakfast

Really quick and simple. They grew like crazy;-) Even though I used self-rising flour instead of leavening.... In fact it is the same thing, just less trouble. I wish someone would start selling it in Poland!














"Quick muffins for breakfast"

- 300 g flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 2 small eggs
- 150 g grated cheese
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 150 g full fat natural yoghurt
- 150 ml milk
- 5 tbsp olive oil

Mix all the ingredients in the kitchen robot, or use a large spoon and a bowl.
Preheat the oven to 190C. Put the dough into moulds or a special muffin baking tray. Bake for good 25 minutes until golden. 

Plum cheesecake

Plums are very healthy and we should eat them now, in autumn. My home-grown sages follow me and tell me such stories full of wisdom. Then they make sure I carry home kilos of fruit from the market. Later I wage war on fruit flies invading my kitchen. And after a while I desperately look for ways to use the plums, looking more miserable every day...












"Plum cheesecake"

- 500g plums
- packet of red jelly (Polish kind)
- 3/4 glass sugar
- 3/4 glass soured cream
- 1 kilo cheese- I used half ricotta half mascarpone 
- 5 eggs
- 2 packs vanilla pudding
- 3 tbsp grouts (semolina)

Prepare the jelly according to indications on packaging, add stone- free plums cut into halves. 

In the kitchen robot mix the cheese with the rest of ingredients. Pour the mixture into a baking tin lined with aluminium foil, if the tin is round, as the mixture is fairy liquid. 
Place the plums with jelly on top. Bake for an hour in 180 C. 

It is a really tasty cheesecake, especially if kept in the fridge for a while. 

Sweet butter rolls

Ania tried to protest, saying that it is already evening and carbohydrates... All right, she will taste it, but just a little bit, a half perhaps. Oh, but you have butter? And jam? Lemon-and lime on top? Mmmh... Delicious!
And you made them so quickly?:-)














"Sweet butter rolls"

- 500g wheat flour
- 150 ml warm milk
- 1tsp salt
- 2 tsp dried yeast/40g fresh yeast
- 3 eggs
- 70g sugar
- 100g soft butter
- icing sugar to sprinkle

Mix the flour, yeast mixed with warm milk, sugar and 70 g butter in a bowl or a kitchen robot.  Add the eggs and salt and work into a nice sphere which does not stick to your palm.  Leave for an hour to grow. 
Divide into portions, form the rolls and put them on the buttered/ floured tin. Cover with the remaining butter. 
Wait again a little while then bake in an oven preheated to 190 C for 20-25 minutes. Serve sprinkled with icing sugar. 

Dry plum liqueur

After a series of friends' visits the level of liqueurs in the bottles decreased considerably... time to recommend the production of new ones, as fruit is fairly cheap this year. Spirits is another story, you can't call it inexpensive. Yet, if you want to think ahead of winter evenings...?














"Dry plum liqueur"

- 500 g plums with stones
- 2-3 cm cinnamon (canella) trunk
- 250 g sugar
- 1/2 litre white wine
- 1,5 litre spirits plus glass of boiled water

Squash the plums in a casserole and cover with wine. Simmer on low heat for 15 minutes. Pour into a jar, add cinnamon, close well and leave for three days. After this time strain the mix and heat the clear juice briefly to dissolve sugar. Let cool and add water and spirits, cover well and after a few days pour into bottles. Ready to drink after at least 3 months.

Quick raspberry cake

This one is really quick. My children /;-)/ informed me, late in the afternoon, that they would be coming to dinner. I managed the main in an hour, but I was baking the cake during the meal. Before the time for after-dinner tea came, the cake was ready. 















"Quick raspberry cake"

For the base:
- 250 g flour
- pinch of salt
- 150g butter
- 100g icing sugar
- 1 egg
- 2 tbsp cognac or brandy

Chop everything quickly, work into a smooth mass and put in the fridge for 20-30 minutes. 

For the topping:
- 200g soured cream /ideally creme fraiche/
- 250 g mascarpone 
- 2 tbsp cognac
- 300 g raspberries
- icing sugar to sprinkle

Butter the baking tray. Spread the cake mixture taken from the fridge, pierce with a fork in many places and bake in a preheated oven for ca. 20 minutes. 

Mix together the mascarpone, cream and cognac in a bowl, spread on the cake when cool and decorate with raspberries. Sprinkle with icing sugar, as the topping is not sweet. 

Fried halloumi cheese for breakfast

Anita and Edyta came to see me. I was really looking forward to their visit, not only because I could imagine a few days if visiting nice places and chats until dawn;-) I also knew that Anita would take over the kitchen! I love her ideas for delicious dishes although, or perhaps because, she refuses to eat meat.  Breakfast was easy: halloumi cheese with spicy sauce that was not really that hot.  Anita claims it is thanks to the lemon juice. It is always like that...

"Fried halloumi cheese"

- a cube of cheese
- good quality olive oil
- 2 chillies
- freshly squeezed juice of one lemon

Slice the cheese and roast without oil in a frying pan. Chop finely the chillies and fry in olive oil. Serve the cheese on a plate, pour the oil on top and add the lemon juice. 

Sponge roll with raspberries and blueberries

That's the way with the rolls, once you start making them you can't stop. They just slide into the belly. And few can resist them. I, for one, cannot...
This dish reminds me of a funny story: My cousin, Eliza, was a really poor eater. She was five years old when we received a visit of a very handsome Frenchman, Claude. I was in love with him too;-)
My granny baked a delicious apple roll and Claude started feeding Eliza... When she was at her fifth slice I asked, surprised: "Do you like this cake so much?" She lowered her eyes and confessed, ashamed, not looking at Claude: "No..."







"Sponge roll with strawberries and blueberries"

- 5 eggs
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 2 tbsp water
- 2/3 glass wheat flour
- 3 copious tbsp of potato starch
- 1 tsp baking powder

- 1 glass cream
- 1 tbsp icing sugar
- raspberries
- blueberries

Separate yolks from whites. Beat the eggs until firm and add, alternating, the yolks with sugar and water. 
Pour the mixture into a flat, buttered and breaded/floured tin. Put into preheated oven and bake in 180 C for ca. 20 minutes. 
Take out and form a roll using a cloth, let cool. 
Whip the cream adding icing sugar towards the end. 
Unroll the sponge cake delicately, spread whipped cream on top and sprinkle with fruit. Roll again. Cut with a sharp thin knife. 

Such a sponge roll does not keep for long (in the fridge if necessary), but it is rarely a problem ;-)

Courgette gluten-free pâté

My poor child, who has to be careful, avoiding bread or even a pinch of flour... Still, perhaps her body knows what it is doing? Gluten is pure energy which nowadays tends to lodge itself around the hips rather than do something more useful.
Anyway, from time to time I try to come up with some gluten-free treat...













"Courgette gluten-free pate"


-3 medium-sized courgettes
-4 eggs
- 1/2 cup gluten-free flour ( those gluten tolerant may take one egg less and replace flour with bread crumbs)
-salt, pepper to taste
- herbs, thyme for example
- olive oil or butter

Wash the courgettes, cut off both ends and grate using grater or kitchen robot. Add eggs and flour and mix well. 
Add salt and paper to taste, chop the  herbs, pour olive oil or place some butter on top generously. 
Pour the mixture into a well greased tin and put in an oven preheated to 180 C. Bake for at least 30 minutes.