In my 49th year on this planet I have made hummus today, for the first time ever. I became a fan of it fairly recently, but always used to buy it, a Greek one from Esselunga. But a pack of tahini caught my eye while shopping there yesterday, so I grabbed some chickpeas too and followed a recipe found in the web. Very pleasantly surprised, how good it is. The shop bought one had no cumin, this one does and it really makes a difference.

60 ml of lemon juice and 60 ml of tahini were blended first, until creamy, one garlic clove, a generous splash of olive oil. Ground cumin, smoked paprika, salt. Half of the 250g can of chickpeas in ( weight with the liquid 400g). Before adding the other half, some of the leftover liquid from the chickpeas went it to loosen it and more blending, until creamy and delicious. A touch more salt, another splash of olive oil.

Yet more olive oil to serve. We had it with the Swedish crispy bread from Ikea, discovered thanks to Daniel. Very good pairing, as the bread tastes of nothing, so one appreciates the hummus more. Yum! A keeper!

You Tube introduced me recently to a Silesian cook called Remigiusz Raczka, interesting to watch in the kitchen, pleasant to listen to. His take on placki ziemniaczane caught my attention and I made them his way for lunch today. It is the most miserable day in living memory, weather wise. It rains cats and dogs, it’s cold, grey, the cats have not been outside at all today. Florek is suffering from a back injury and Iza has a day off for that reason. I cook.

I used a different side of the grater, to change the texture of placki a bit, make them more hay-like. Normally I use my mini food processor to turn the potatoes into a pulp, today I did the work. Not sure if it made a huge difference. What did though was an extra ingredient- 3 cloves of garlic. Grated, like the spuds and onion. Then, as always, one egg, 2 tbps of plain flour, salt and pepper and they were ready to fry.

Nice, simple and calorific lunch, that made the house smelling like our small flat in Stronie. Iza and I had them with sugar and sour cream, the way I used to when I was a kid. Yum.

From giallozafferano.it. Surpringly lovely to eat, crunchy little delights, even Florek said he’d have them again. Iza on the other hand announced they were her biggest nightmare, all they needed was an olive on top and it would be an ultimate schifezza! 🙂

I roasted 2 whole aubergines for about an hour in 200 degrees, cooled them slightly, peeled off the skins and then placed on collander to get rid of the excess water. Mashed them with a fork and then added an egg, 2 mashed garlic cloves, a generous amount of both breadcrumbs and grana padano, chopped parsley, salt and pepper. When eating them in the evening I thought a nice, crunchy green chili, not super hot, but flavoursome, will be added next time. Or a raw shallot. Or both!

Once formed in cute little polpette I rolled them in breabcrumbs again and they waited in the fridge for dinner. Deep fried until golden, sprinkled with salt before serving, also a fresh green salad and a dip made of Greek yoghurt, cucumber and mint went well together. I’m thinking they would make a great antipasto, maybe even with guacamole!

It was curry night this evening. The time has changed last night for the winter one, so it started getting dark after 5pm. I thought a nice naan bread with that curry would be appreciated, especially by bread loving Child and curry loving Husband. I flipped through internet hoping to find a decent recipe, settled on one quite quickly and after sifting through thousands of unnecessary words leading up to the actual recipe, as usual, finally got cooking, with Izzie’s help.

We used 280 g pf plain flour, some of which made us a nice starter with 20g of fresh yeast and 120 ml of warm water. After about 10 minutes we added the starter to the remaing flour, plus a tsp of sugar and a tsp of salt, 120 g of youghurt bianco, a splash of oil and got it all working in the Kitchen Aid. I ended up adding some more flour, as the dough was super sticky and runny.

After less than an hour of resting it, we were ready to get on with it. Butter chicken curry from The Spice Tailor kit was nearly ready, today with prawns, rice was ready, melted butter with garlic and coriander was ready to be brushed all over the naans. Izzie rolled out the dough, I was cooking it really quickly on a super hot dry frying pan. It blistered beautifully.

First two were eaten immediately, barely cooled and they were gone. That good!

Definitely a keeper this recipe. Ron is coming to visit us in a month, I asked for some more curry kits, they really are excellent.

Last Saturday we were invited to Leszek and Ewelina’s. There was a lot of good food on their table, 2 types of curry, steamed rice, some chicken for meat lovers, naan bread that made me squeak, as mine is never that good and there were also those beauties. They were already on the table when we arrived, the toothpicks made it easy to pick up and enjoy. They were my favourite thing we have eaten that evening, I asked for a recipe and then also found it on the internet. Just like Leszek said, it is a Georgian dish, veggie, healthy, good for you. Pretty and tasty. I made it last night and ended up scoffing most of it by myself, as husband claimed the texture of aubergines made them ….challenging. Ma che cazzata!! 🙂

Thinly sliced aubergines were first salted and left to sweat for half an hour before being dried off and fried. The stuffing I’ve made a tiny bit differently. The original recipe and the one at Leszek’s used raw walnuts, I simply can’t stop myself from toasting them, there is so much more flavour after 10 minutes of gentle heat! They were then blitzed with a shallot, some garlic ( maybe a bit too much, I decided afterwards), fresh coriander, a pinch of chili and paprika, salt and all this creamed with a good splash of water to make it into a paste. Spread on the aubergine slices, rolled up, stitched with a toothpick and finished off with fresh pomegranate seeds and more fresh coriander. 10 out of 10 for me and I will be making them in a couple of weeks for a planned dinner party. Might play around with a completely different filling.