We think of smoked fish as an ingredient of pastes or salads. When I go to the seaside I go to my favourite smokehouse and I buy the freshest smoked halibut, and I eat almost half of it on the way home. Recently, it emerged that smoked fish could be an excellent ingredient in soups. I had smoked salmon and smoked mackerel in the fridge, and I put this kind of fish into the pot, but you may use your favourite fish.

Ingredients:
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 carrot
half a tin of corn
1 tablespoon of butter
2 allspices
2 bay leaves
4 potatoes
300g of smoked fish
11 of vegetable stock
1 tablespoon of cream
minced parsley
salt and pepper

I like dumplings very much. Even though this dish isn't the most healthy, it is delicious. I think there aren't any children who don't like dumplings with blueberries and sweet cream.

You can make dumplings from French pastry or yeasty dough and bake them in the oven or from normal dough and boil them. The stuffing could be a surprise for your family. This time I made dumplings with spinach. As well as garlic and walnuts, I propose adding cheese to the stuffing. Use whatever you like: feta cheese, gorgonzola or grated emmenthal.

I serve them fried until golden with cheese or garlic dip.

If you would like dumplings from French pastry, you may find the recipe here. Below you will find a recipe for dumplings from normal dough.

Ingredients:
Dough
0.5 kg of flour + flour for sprinkling a pastry board
½ teaspoon of salt
60ml oil
200ml of hot water

Though Valentine's day is behind us, today I would like to share with you a recipe for cookies in the shape of a heart. Maybe you need to apologize to somebody, maybe you would like to raise somebody's spirits, or maybe you just like to have some nice, afternoon coffeecakes. It is really difficult to resist the temptation to eat all of them.

Ingredients:
150g of butter
125g of sugar
200g of flour
1 egg
1 tablespoon of cocoa
0.5 teaspoons of baking soda
150g of cherry confiture

Heat the oven up to 180C.

Despite the name ("kapuśniaczek" in Polish it can mean small drops of rain as well) and the situation outside the window, today's entry isn't about the weather.

I received this recipe for yeasty buns stuffed with sauerkraut from the good ghost of our house. Miss Ania – called grandma by our children – has brought us a lot of dainties like Russian dumplings, cakes and small buns with sauerkraut. You can prepare a vegetarian version with sauerkraut and onion as the filling, or a meat version with sausages or bacon. They are tasty hot with borscht, but I like them cold. you may sprinkle the top of the buns with your favourite seasoning: poppy seeds, sesame seeds or caraway seeds.

Ingredients:
stuffing:
0.5 kg of sauerkraut
1 big onion
2 tablespoons of butter
1 bay leaf
2 allspices
2 pepper seeds
1 teaspoon of caraway seeds
200g of sausages or bacon

Everyone knows what they can expect from a movie classified as a romantic comedy. The subject matter is love, there's a bit of comedy, a bit of melodrama, some humour, witty dialogues and a rousing couple as the main characters. Movies like this have as many supporters as they do bitter opponents.

Romantic comedies were very popular in the 30s and 50s last century. It is worth mentioning some classics of the genre: "The shop around the corner" by Ernest Lubitsch, "Mr. Deeds goes to town" by Frank Capra, and "Love in the afternoon" by Billy Wilder. Following this, the development of heavy movies meant that romantic offerings had to take a back seat. When people had had enough of cheeky thieves, special agents and good and bad cops, filmmakers once again reached out for the old patterns. In the 90s we could see "You've Got Mail", "Four Weddings and a Funeral", "Pretty Woman" and my favourite, "Nothing Hill".

The screenplays in romantic comedies have always been the same. The fates of the main characters interweave quite by chance. At the beginning they can't stand one another. She is gushing, he is coarse-grained, and there isn't any common ground. At last it becomes clear that they are meant for each other and we have "they live happily ever after". Despite the predictability, the romantic comedy has its supporters. Often we watch movies to see our favourites actors. Meg Rayan, Tom Hanks, Hugh Grant, Julia Roberts and Jennifer Aniston have played in many films, but we like them most for their roles in romantic productions.

A lot of excellent Polish movies belong to the genre of romantic comedy. Recently, I have watched the great Planet of the Singles by Mitia Okorn.