Scary….Chocolate Cake

Now, that Halloween is only a few days away, it is time for some scary cake. Boo… The chocolate cake that is being used here is an easy and versatile recipe and can be used for making muffins or simple sheet pan cake. Enjoy it with a smile! 🙂 Yum How to YIELD: 1 cake…

Apple Cake

Apple cake – a simple and quick recipe for a dessert that screams autumn and cozyness. Do not put this aside only because it looks rustic – it is delicious and comforting … and a no brainer :D. P.S. It goes really well served warm with vanilla ice cream. 😀 Enjoy it with a smile!…

Dried fruits cake

This is a very versatile recipe – you can replace the rum with something more suitable to the targeted eaters of this cake (:D), you can make muffins out of it and you can replace the used dried fruits to better suit your taste. It goes well with coffee or tea – trust me on…

Mushroom filled pasta

Fresh pasta is always easy to do and it can stand for a quick lunch/dinner just by adding some pesto – if you have a little bit of time to use for preparing a Sunday dinner for example, it is worth trying the fresh pasta sheets filled with something tasty: mushrooms, cheese or meat work…

Cheese Doughnuts

There is something about these cheese doughnuts that makes you want one more every time you start eating them. They are having a heavier consistency than the normal doughnuts and they delicious both served warm or cold. They go well with sour cream and jam (not a very sweet one). I do the jam at…

Lasagna

Warning: This is not a recipe for someone that goes on a diet – it has pasta, cheese, meat and tons and tons of flavor. This is an easy dish that can feed a very hungry family or can be prepared in advance and frozen without baking it. It only needs to be thawed before…

Banoffi Pie

It has been a while since I added anything here – so it is time to start doing it again. It is one of my New Year’s resolutions to work on this, so I am happy to see that I am doing it and not just saying that I will. Hope it will last. 🙂…

Easy vanilla ice cream

Although the summer is almost over, I cannot end it without sharing this super easy ice cream recipe. To make it different each time I add a few drops of lemon oil or orange, or if it is just for the adults a little bit of liquor (I am talking about a teaspoon tops and…

Caprese salad

This is not exactly cooking, but slicing. Nevertheless, it is perfect for a warm summer day. Simple and tasty – nothing can beat this…well, except eating it by the sea, in the shadow, maybe :). Enjoy it with a smile! 🙂 Yum How to YIELD: 4 servings Ingredients: 2 balls of fresh mozzarella (around 150…

Fish pie

In the search of various ways of including as much fish as possible in our diet, i tried this pie recipe and i added the fish to see if it works, and it does. I did not have much fish to add – just a few slices of salmon and some capers and the result…

Warm potato salad

This warm potato salad can be used as a side dish for grilled meat or by itself when in the mood for a meatless light dinner. Whatever remains from dinner can be stored in the fridge and heated up next day for lunch at work. At least this is what I did….;) Enjoy it with…

Homemade pizza

Who does not like pizza? Well, yeah, it might happen that there are people that do not like pizza out there, but I do not know them ;). The best pizza I ate was, surprise, surprise, in Italy, to be more specific, in Napoli: thin crust with fresh tomatoes and rucola. Delicious. Simple. Perfect. You…

Sweet chicken clubs

What to do when you have two trays of chicken clubs and not much time to spare nor inspiration? Throw them in the oven with some condiments and cross your fingers that the outcome is not boring. To make it a little bit different and take the taste towards sweet and sour I mixed chili,…

Baked mini doughnuts

I am a big kitchen gadgets buyer – among the things that I buy quite often are trays. I guess this shows its face especially when I buy special trays – like the ones for macarons (which by the way, I used only once and decided that they are useless) or for madeleines (this one…

Eclair

According to the French-English dictionary, éclair means lightning/flash of lighting. The question is if they were named éclairs because one can eat them with the speed of light or because their beauty can strike like lightning and make you fall in love with them. Hmmm… I am used with the classic éclair filled with chocolate…

Homemade pasta

Pasta is the “to go” dish when I do not have the time or the mood to make something for dinner. Fresh pasta with pesto is one of my kid’s favorite dishes – and it is more than fine with me because it ensures a dinner with no complaints and fuss. From time to time,…

Pesto

I used to buy jars of pesto thinking that might be a fuss doing it myself. I was buying the same brand and was used to its taste, until one day when I did not find the usual so I got another one – which had a very different taste. This made me start reading…

Speedy pasta

I always end up questioning the same thing when I reach mid-week: what should I make for dinner? Most of the time I end up starring at the huge amount of stuff laying on the store’s shelves. And I, always, after around 10 minutes, end up buying pasta, tomatoes, fish/chicken and run to pick my…

Rustic cheesecake

Cheese is one of my favorite things to eat. I add it to salad, potato chips, stew and whatever I think it can be “enriched” by the added cheese (:) – yeah, I know, it is just an excuse to eat cheese). But when it comes to something sweet, made almost entirely out of cheese,…

Fish soup

I am on a mission to have my family eat fish 3 times per week. Since I am not exactly an expert in how to prepare fish and there is no time to spend during the week to do it (i have to get something on the table in around an hour), I take the…

Homemade cheese

This cheese is something that nowadays I make just for the rustic cheesecake or when I want to make some appetizers, but I used to make it a lot when my boy was a baby. I used to mix it with avocado or fruits and he used to love it :). It is easy and…

Homemade fudge

I love, love, love this fudge! It is addictive and although it contains lots and lots of sugar, it is just irresistible. It keeps really well in an airtight container and it is a great “go-to” when in the mood for something sweet – and I mean really, really, sweet :). It is also a…

Sweet and sour chicken

I am not particularly keen on sweet and sour combination for a savory dish, but my husband loves it. Since now, I used the store bought sauce but, this time, I took it a step further and tried to do everything from scratch. I found several recipes and below is one that worked for me…

Macarons

I love macarons. I tried so many times to make them and I was not very successful – i got something but they were so far from what they were supposed to be that I could not even call them failed macarons. They were some weird entities. However, one day I found a book called…

Mango salsa

This is the easiest thing I have done, by far. It consists only in chopping stuff (great therapy, by the way – not like kneading bread, but very close) and mixing them together. It is fresh, goes well as a side dish or on its own with some taco chips, looks amazing and makes you…

Pavlova with berries

This dessert is named after the Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova, because, it is said, it was created in her honour. Although I have my doubts that she was actually eating dessert (even if it named after her), I think that whoever came up with this dessert had a stroke of genius – it is a…

Homemade lemonade

I do not know about others but I had enough of rainy, cloudy, depressing days. I am thinking already about summer, sun, sea, warm sand and that quiet laziness that makes you think that life is indeed beautiful. Since in the part of the world I am currently living in, the spring does not yet…

Coconut and chocolate cream raw cake

I have never made a raw cake in my life…well, until now…I found this recipe in a “Bake” magazine and it looked so appealing that I said, well, let’s try it. The fact that it was super good took me by surprise. It was sweet, but not extremely sweet and the coconut worked exceptionally well…

Meat pie

I love meat pies. I think they are easy to make, comforting when eaten and the smell is absolutely divine. This is my “to go” recipe when I feel the need for comfort food, because I find it tasty and easy and I do not need a long list of ingredients and fuss. Enjoy it…

Mixed berries smoothie

My kid is a huge fan of smoothies – he stands by my side waiting to get a glass from the second I tell him that I am going to make some smoothies for us. To make it easy for me I always keep a bag of berries in the freezer and if I have…

Frappuccino

We had a few sunny days before Easter and although the temperature did not rise above 8 °C, it “forced” me to take action and get some frappuccinos on the table. It is tasty and fast (I had the caramel already made from the day before) and it is something that I will definitely do again…and…

Bulgur salad with dried cranberries and fresh parsley

OK. This is definitely something that i have not done before, although I am always in the search of fast, nutritious and hopefully good looking dishes to prepare for dinner. I was a little bit reluctant to try it on, but I have to admit i was wrong – it was ready in no time and…

Fish’n’chips

Fish?!? Oh, no. Didn’t we have fish a few weeks ago??? And salad? With tomatoes….no, no, no. Do I have to eat it? This is what my 6 years old boy is saying every single time I tell him that we have fish and salad for dinner. And trust me, this is not something that…

Muffins with lemon curd topping

I buy food magazines – lots and lots of them. Some i just read and look at the pretty neat pictures and imagine that if I try the recipe, the outcome will look as in the magazine. Sometimes I actually try some of the recipes. Until now – none of them was even close to…

Childhood biscuits salami

This recipe is something that my grandmother used to make for me and my sister – it was a treat that we always enjoyed. Twenty something years later (let’s make it thirty something, if we go down on the honesty path) I still enjoy it and although nowadays I think about calories, I cannot refuse…