Well I would like to write that I added this and that to the tart and that it is really a chocolate tart with chocolate and... chocolate with a tinge of blackcurrant. Like everything with chocolate, in my opinion this cake tastes great, and the addition of sweet-and-sour jam surprises us and emphasizes the velvety taste of the filling. A cup of strong, hot tea or a cup of flavorsome coffee is an obligatory accompaniment to chocolate tart.

I prepared the cake using a recipe from a cookery book from Lidl. By the way, I found out what ganache means. This hitherto unknown word refers to a glaze, icing, sauce or filling for pastries made from chocolate and cream. You may use it as a cake filling or for chocolate pralines.

Adult gourmands may like to flavor the glaze with a bit of strong alcohol such as rum, brandy or amaretto.

Ingredients:

tart:

100g of butter

2 egg yolks

30g of cocoa

30g of caster sugar

150g of flour

pinch of salt

6 tablespoons of blackcurrant jam

Recently I discovered that stuffed cabbages with potatoes or groats are a traditional dish on the Ukrainian Christmas Eve table. Much like in Poland, in Ukraine the Christmas Eve supper is a meat-free meal, which means my proposal today couldn't be on the Christmas Eve table. I enriched the filling with American bacon and instead of white cabbage I used savoy cabbage. Though the combination of cabbage and potatoes seems to be strange, the net effect was very interesting. The perfect complement for this dish is a thick flavorsome mushroom sauce.

Ingredients:

Stuffed cabbage

1 savoy cabbage

1 kg of potatoes

2 onions

150g of American bacon

2 eggs

2 tablespoons of marjoram

salt and pepper

1 Knorr mushroom cube

sauce

a fistful of dried mushrooms

half an onion

2 teaspoons of butter

2 tablespoons of heavy cream

salt and pepper

Out of all the months in the year, the longest for me is November. It is such a nostalgic and melancholic time. Trees without leaves, grey sky, early twilight - it is not a Polish golden Autumn anymore, but there is still a long way to go before we can celebrate warmly Christmas with the family.

All Saint's Day in November induces reflections and dwelling on the past. Its heroes are for me not only my closest relatives who have passed away. Every year on one of the November weekends we go to the Military Graveyard Powązki. At that time we try to remind our ever-growing children about Poland's important people. We want to come to a stop for a minute by places which memorialize these who passed away defending what was important for them and also for us.

I think that apart from dressing our children, feeding them and sending them to good schools, this is one of the most important roles which the passing of time imposes on us parents. The young generation luckily has not seen or experienced certain things, and not everyone has grandfathers who are tangible proof of fighting and passing history. History lessons at school present cold facts which once learned fly away too fast from young heads. Much more is said by straight brown crosses, grassy graves and nameplates with age descriptions of scouts from "Szare Szeregi". "Mom, they were only a few years older than I am now...."

Every year we read and tell them the history of the Katyń Valley Monument, pointing out that Poland was not always a free country, in which the truth is a superior value, adding that Poland's independence of that time was in name only. The multitude of lights burning by the Monument for those Murdered in Concentration Camps also make a deep impression.