Do you remember what you ate when you went on holiday as a kid? As well as fresh rolls and tomatoes, my mum always prepared roast chicken and hard boiled eggs. At a way station on a long car journey, nothing tasted as great as roast chicken thigh and tomato, which we ate like an apple.

It is equally nice to eat then something sweet and homemade. For my children I try to prepare some cookies when we go on a trip. Usually, I make French pastry with white chocolate and brown sugar, which my children call słuchaweczki (small receivers). This time I prepared millet groats cookies with tahini and chocolate. They are not so sweet, have lots of sesame seeds and are crunchy with a beautiful, homely smell.

Ingredients (30 cookies)
3 tablespoons of tahini
120g of brown sugar
100g of butter
1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
a pinch of salt
1 egg
130g of millet groats flakes
75g of flour
½ teaspoon of baking powder
½ of baking soda
100g of dark chocolate

During my last visit to the fruit and vegetable market I bought so many broad beans that I didn't want to risk cooking everything at once. I prepared a rich, creamy soup with them. The green soup, served with a bit of thick yoghurt and nigella, was very tasty.

Only my daughter ate all of her dish, but she asked me not to blend the broad beans next time. The only shortcoming of this simple soup is that you have to peel the cooked broad beans. This time I was able to count on my daughter's help. It was very nice of her, but I don't know how many she ate and how many she put into the bowl. My daughter loves broad beans very much, and if I don't put a portion by for her, she can eat everything regardless of the fact that the rest of family doesn't get even one bean.

Ingredients (for 5 people)
1 kg of broad beans
half an onion
1 clove of garlic
1 tablespoon of butter
4 sprigs of thyme
1 tablespoon of caraway seeds
vegetable stock
5 teaspoons of thick natural yoghurt
2 teaspoons of nigella
2 tablespoons of sunflowers seeds
salt and pepper

The first part of the holiday has gone. My daughter has come back from the sports camp. Every year I try to prepare something special for her. This year I prepared a feather-light chocolate whip. There wouldn't be anything special in this dessert if it wasn't for its main ingredient. It was aquafaba - i.e. the liquid which is left after straining chickpeas from a tin. Up to now I have poured it away. From today I will never make this mistake. Joël Roessel, a French chef, was the discoverer of aquafaba. He wanted an alternative to eggs when preparing meringues.

Protein and starch are the only ingredients of aquafaba. It doesn't have any other additives. Cold aquafaba can be whisked like an egg white. Next time I will try to prepare some meringues with aquafaba, but now I would like to share with you the recipe for an extremely simple chocolate whip. I served it with the sub acid from an apricot mousse. My children were delighted, and so were we.

Ingredients (for 4 people)
200ml of aquafaba (from one tin of chickpeas)
2 teaspoons of caster sugar
150g of dark chocolate
6 apricots
2 tablespoons of lemon juice
2 tablespoons of brown sugar

During the long May weekend the weather in Karkonosze wasn't nice. In Poland we say: "the weather is squared". The sunny moments with almost summer sun were interspersed with torrential rain and cold wind. In short: "something nice for everybody".

One of the mornings said hallo to us with almost October weather. Somehow we had to utilise our children's energy. Mountain trips weren't possible. Fortunately, we found Glass Factory Julia near Szklarska Poręba, which we decided to visit.

Our first contact with the place was disturbing. The crowds of people milling around the building, the buses and cars filling up the decent-sized carparks and a lot of children messing around frightened us a bit. Actually, it turned out that the only difficult thing was finding a free space in the car park. The crowd of adults and children were efficiently directed by the Glass Factory staff. The checkout line, tickets, the set times for visiting the Factory, the shop, guide and interpretive walk – everything was well thought out and very well organized.

Visiting the Factory is possible only in the care of a guide in 20-person groups. The groups enter the factory every 30 minutes. If there is an exceptionally large group of people, visiting starts every 15 minutes. Although there were a lot of people ahead of us, we waited only 45 minutes, which was exactly as much time as we needed to see the products in one of the shops with coloured glass (visiting the factory finishes in the shop with white glass) and drink an excellent hot chocolate and coffee in the Lily-white Café. The cakes and dessert served in the local glass looked appealing and were very tasty. The only minor flaw was the small amount of chairs in the café, but here we were also lucky.

The holiday is a time when everybody should rest. Although it is difficult for children to comprehend, the holiday is also for parents, and it doesn't only consist of providing entertainment for children. For housewives it should be a break from bothersome cooking. Fortunately, fresh fruit and vegetables make cooking simpler and lighter. Sometimes in holiday resorts we can eat out, but it is not always easy to find something good and tolerably cheap. For me, supper is always the most difficult meal. At first I could always rely on sandwiches, but at some stage there comes the moment when I hear: "again?" 

Today I would like to share with you the recipe for a dish which meets holiday requirements. It is easy, and it doesn't need sophisticated ingredients or an oven. A frying pan is enough. Quesadilla, the dish in question, is a tortilla with melted cheese. The rest of the ingredients you choose at your discretion. Red beans, pepper, chorizo or fried meat all work brilliantly. I added fried pieces of turkey leg. Thanks to this, my dish could be a holiday dinner.

Ingredients (for 2 people)
4 tortillas
300g of turkey leg
half a chili pepper
half an onion
1 clove of garlic
2 tablespoons of oil
200g of tinned sweetcorn
200g of tinned red beans
fresh pepper
200g of mozzarella cheese
salt and pepper