When after two years we thought the world was out of the woods, we again heard fate's chuckle and the world was plunged into chaos, leaving mourning and losses. That's why especially now we should appreciate reasonably calm reality, peace in our country and good health. In addition we should appreciate family, friends and freedom. Let wise and good people, on whom we can rely, surround us. I wish this for you and for myself.

Happy Easter!

Many of us associate breakfast with a sip of fragrant hot coffee and newly rediscovered oat flakes. The kindergarten nightmare in the form of a thick, sticky porridge with milk is forgotten, and breakfast porridges no longer remind us of this nightmare at all. Fruit, vanilla and chocolate porridges infused with different nuts look amazing and they taste great too. For those who still have bad memories of porridge, I recommend mixing the oat flakes with some added ingredients. Make a pudding which has only nice associations, and your breakfast will be nutritious and look nice.

Today I combined some breakfast flavours. I prepared blueberry porridge with fruit and homemade coffee granola. It was delicious. I hope for more mornings like this.

Ingredients:

granola

2 tablespoons of sugar

100g of oat flakes

1 espresso

a fistful of peanuts

porridge:

100g of oat flakes

100g of blueberries

2 tablespoons of maple syrup

1 teaspoon of lemon juice

100ml of milk

For a few years I have loved eastern sweets. I know that they are extremely sweet, but I eat them nevertheless. Well, everybody has their weakness. As well as chocolate, I love baklava and Turkish delight - the traditional treat, usually fruit-flavoured and jelly-like, textured with coconut shreds or nuts, and served as a cube in icing sugar. I don't think I need to introduce baklava to anyone. I love its layeredness and sticky sweetness. My favourite is pistachio flavour. I dream about the summer vacation in Turkey, where baklavas in different flavours were available everywhere.

A few days ago I decided to prepare baklava in my own kitchen (using master Paweł Małecki's recipe from Lidl's culinary website). It was absolutely delicious and surprisingly easy. I recommend it to everyone who loves eastern sweets 

Ingredients

1 pack of chilled French pastry

60g of melted butter

200ml of water

150g of sugar

2 tablespoons of lemon juice

2 tablespoons of honey

150g of chopped almonds and cashew nuts

100g of chopped pistachios (without shells)

1 tablespoon of flour

Do you, like me, also associate citrus fruit with winter and the holiday season? Maybe because in December the most important news on the TV is that citrus fruits are being transported from Cuba to Poland. Then you only have to wait and enjoy the amazing smell of exotic fruits. If you save a little it can last a bit longer than only for the holidays. That's why tangerines are for me a winter fruit. Actually, I only buy them during this season, but I buy a lot of them, because my children love them.

Today I used these beautiful and juicy fruits to prepare an upside-down tangerine cake. The slightly tart taste of tangerines goes perfectly with the sweetness of caramel. The cake is amazing just after baking. It has a fantastic caramel shell and a soft fruit-vanilla inside. The next day you should soak the cake with caramel-tangerine sauce and it will be perfectly moist and fluffy at the same time. I don't know which version I prefer. Decide for yourselves 

Ingredients (20-cm baking sheet)

6 mandarins

250g of flour

100g of sugar for cake + 100g of sugar for caramel

130ml of oil

150ml of water

1.5 teaspoons of baking powder

2 eggs

a pinch of salt

Vacations on Sardinia were for us a completely lazy time, eating fresh treats that we bought from the stands of the local bazaar. Tomatoes, figs, peaches, cactus pears and primarily seafood – a big assortment. At the bazaar there was an old man who from a big bowl full of water sold clam cockles that had been caught early in the morning. As a bonus he gave everyone a bunch of parsley, probably from his own garden. His wife, next to him, sold fresh figs. Both of them explained to us in Italian what we could do with this food and how to prepare it, so it would be the best. They didn't acknowledge our "non capsico" and after two visits, they welcomed us as good friends. Today we have a commemorative dinner: tagliatelle with clam cockles in wine sauce. It's a delicious and easy dish – I recommend it!

Ingredients (for 4 people)
350g of tagliatelle
2-3 big fistfuls of fresh cockles
1 small leek
1 shallot
2-3 cloves of garlic
1 tablespoon of butter
350ml of dry white wine
100ml of sweet cream (optionally)
a bunch of parsley

I think that everybody who was raised in difficult times remembers perfectly the taste of kogel-mogel: eggs whisked with sugar to make a light-yellow, almost white, fluffy mixture. For many of us it was a way of dealing with having a sweet tooth. Later, when chocolate sweets were a little bit easier to get, we added a spoon of cocoa and the dessert was completely different. Today nobody could make me eat a raw egg, but for my husband it is still one of the best sweets. Today I prepared a huge portion of luxury kogel-mogel. I put it on some field berries and made a heavenly dessert. I warn those who are watching their figure, because it is a sugar bomb, but it is really hard to resist. Hot, aromatic juicy field berries, sweet and slightly stretchy kogel-mogel with a crunchy shell is an amazing combination. I recommend it for boosting your mood, especially on a nasty winter afternoon. Imagine this: it is dark and cold outside and on the table there is a hot and sweet pleasure with the smell of fruit...

Ingredients (for 4 people)
500g of different forest fruit
4 egg yolks
4 tablespoons of sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
1 teaspoon of butter