Salad with Roasted Peppers and Tomatoes [vegetarian]

This salad is all about the wonderful combination of ingredients: tasty tomatoes with sweet roasted peppers, salty anchovies, slightly acidic capers, crunchy pine nuts and fragrant basil. I prefer to finish it off just before serving as I don’t like when the tomatoes go soft from being covered by dressing for too long. But a lot can be prepared much earlier to ease the pressure in case the salad is to be served for guests. The peppers...

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Yeast Cake with Plums and Crumble Topping [My Grandma’s Baking – Part I]

When I think about people who have influenced my cooking, my maternal grandmother is surely one of them. For as long as I can remember, there has always been at least one cake baked by her every Sunday and many, many more for special occasions. Her birthday cakes (torte) with butter cream were famous amongst family, friends and acquaintances and I can still remember us – her grandchildren – fighting over who was going to scrape bowls...

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Orecchiette with Broad Beans and Tomatoes [Vegetarian]

Although in summer I prepare a lot of salads for us, it is nice to have something just slightly heavier from time to time, like pasta. Since hot weather doesn’t really go that well (at least in my opinion) with heavy and creamy sauces, one day I came up with this tasty pasta recipe below. The great advantage of this dish is that the majority of ingredients I used are probably available in lots of kitchens on daily basis with broad beans...

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Thai Style Prawns [Shrimps] Stir-Fry

Although I experiment a lot with cooking new dishes, sometimes when I find a meal we love, I tend to make it often and don’t look for other options. So when I buy prawns [shrimps] and think how I should cook them, I often go back to my Pasta with Prawns recipe. It is quick, easy to make and delicious. But I do realize that by continuing to choose this yummy but safe option, I may not cook a really wonderful but other prawn dish. So...

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Almond Cake with Raspberries

It is not a secret that I have a sweet tooth and I love cakes. In truth, my whole adventure with cooking started with baking. But I do know that cakes - although delicious - are not really the healthiest option. I do try to bake healthier versions with less sugar, no butter, no gluten etc. but it doesn’t change the fact that sometimes I do fancy a heavier cake. That is why I came up with an idea of baking… small cakes. So I use smaller...

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Vegetarian Lasagne with a Mushroom Bolognese Sauce

Actually my daughters made lasagna for the first time in our home a few years ago. I was obviously with them supervising and helping where necessary, but they did vast majority of the preparation and cooking themselves. Their lasagne was really delicious so they made it a number of times but it had one weakness: it wasn’t vegetarian. And since one of my girls stopped eating meat two years ago, I was faced with a challenge to try and...

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Apple and Blueberry Cobbler

Although I love testing new recipes, there are many dishes I have been cooking for years, and this Apple and Blueberry Cobbler is just one of these. When I made it for the first time, it was already so popular that my husband and brother almost chased each other to the kitchen the next day to have the leftovers for breakfast. And still now when I make it for guests, everybody loves it and it is finished in no time. Another advantage...

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