When I ask my son what I should prepare for dinner, you can be sure as hell he wants pancakes or crepes. He isn't a typical guy. He doesn't like meat. He likes groats, rice, potatoes, vegetables and salads, and he leaves the meat to the end. When I was a child I was the opposite. First, I ate what I liked the least so that I could relish my favourite dish.

Today I would like to share with you a recipe inspired by my son's taste. I recommend courgette-buckwheat pancakes, which I served with horseradish dip on a natural yoghurt base.

The recipe comes from Lidl cookery book.

Ingredients:
100g of buckwheat groats
1 onion
300g of courgette
2 cloves of garlic
3 tablespoons of minced parsley
150g of 18% cream
1 teaspoon of baking powder
4 tablespoons of flour
2 eggs
salt and pepper

I hate getting up in the morning. My household knows that before 8 o'clock I'm unbearable, and because almost every day I wake up much earlier, I tend to be unbearable more frequently than I want. Every extra five minutes of sleep is priceless, so I appreciate a good breakfast that is not too complicated and is quick to prepare.

Recently, I have been preparing breakfast with groats and flakes. This time I chose cuscus. This product is a cross between pasta and groats, and it doesn't need long to prepare. It is enough to add hot water or milk and leave for a few minutes. I added some fresh pineapple, cranberries and banana. I spiced it up with some hot chili pepper .

Ingredients (for 2 people)
125g of cuscus
400ml of almond milk
1 tablespoon of honey
1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
2 slices of fresh pineapple
1 teaspoon of minced chili pepper
150g of fresh cranberries
2 tablespoons of brown sugar
1 banana
4 tablespoons of flaked almonds

Though the late autumn doesn't encourage us to go on long walks, I think it is worth finding the motivation to go outside and get some fresh air. An empty autumn park, nostalgic fog and rustling leaves underfoot can be quite nice, especially if you are accompanied by somebody pleasant. If the chill and bitter wind trouble you acutely, you can call in at Videlec – a new place on the culinary map of Warsaw. Here you may start your culinary adventure with strong, fragrant and warming winter tea, which is full of spices. Then you can calmly explore the secrets of the menu.

I recommend starting the feast with one of the small but very tasty starters. There is something for everybody: bruschetta with dried tomatoes, olives and Parmesan, light beetroot carpaccio with smoked cheese, steak tartare with mushrooms, capers and onion and even not so popular ox tongues. The offer is very attractive and I admit I had a problem settling on something. Choosing the soup was easier. There were two soups on the menu and we tried both of them. I especially recommend sunchoke cream soup, beautifully served with beetroot, pine nuts and truffle olive oil. The mushroom soup surprised us with its fixings: smoked trout, thyme and chanterelles. Among the many main courses we chose perfectly baked duck served with mango-pumpkin puree, blackcurrant and sandthorn and fragrant fettuccine with shrimps and cherry tomatoes.

We were in Videlec on Saturday afternoon so we were regaled with the dinner dishes. The chef also recommend a very interesting breakfast and from Monday to Friday a very tasty lunch, as advertised on Facebook.

Sometimes we have days – may there be as few as possible – when nothing works out. I can even burn the water for tea. I have two ways of dealing with such days. The first is to sit in a corner and wait it out – maybe it will sort itself out. I can only do this when I'm alone. When I have a hungry family I have to look for another way. My second way is to use only well-known recipes and stick to them irregardless of how well I know them. Any experiments in this situation will end in failure.

Last weekend was just difficult. My husband helped me prepare dinner, but the dessert was my problem alone. Following the rules, I used a recipe for napoleon that is so simple there is no way you could fail. I recommend it to anyone struggling with creative impotence or who likes glamourous results after not too much effort in the kitchen.

Ingredients (for 9 napoleons)
1 pack of chilled French pastry
500ml of milk
6 tablespoons of sugar
1 packet of powdered blancmange
50g of butter
2 egg yolks
1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
1 tablespoons of potato flour
2 tablespoons of flour
caster sugar

Most of us take lunch boxes to the office. Some lucky people can warm their food up at work The rest have to eat sandwiches. Sandwiches are great, but even if we absolutely love them we could get fed up with them in the end. Regardless of where we work we can save the situation with salads. Every day we can prepare a different one and we have an entirely new lunch. If we also take an attractive dish, we have something that is not only tasty but also glamorous.

I would like to share with you the recipe for a salad which looks equally as beautiful as it is yummy. The chickpeas and groats make it a satisfying and balanced meal, after which we won't be hungry. I think that if you prepare your lunch in the morning and plan to eat it at lunchtime, we should keep the salad and the dip separately. Otherwise, after a few hours in the jar, we have an unappetising dish with squishy lettuce, which isn't what we want, is it?

Ingredients (for 2 people)
1 beetroot
200g of tinned chickpeas
100g of bulgur
1 carrot
1 fresh green pepper
4 lettuce leaves
200g of natural yoghurt
handful of minced chives
1 small chili pepper
salt and pepper