Both children and adults like muffins. They are excellent as a dessert or as a sweet snack during a party. You can add fruit, chocolate, crème, nuts – everything you have on hand. December is a time for cinnamon, cloves and anise, so I recommend adding a bit of spice to the muffins. You will make a quick dessert that smells of home and is reminiscent of the magic of Christmas and family atmosphere.

I prepared my muffins in silicon pastry cases. I decorated the muffins with lemon crème and pieces of pomegranate. Thanks to this, my dessert was refreshing and light, and the pomegranate balanced the chocolaty sweetness of the muffins.

Ingredients (12 muffins)
muffins
300g of flour
2 tablespoons of cocoa
1 tablespoon of spices
1 tablespoon of cinnamon
150g of butter
170ml of milk
160g of brown sugar
2 eggs
2 flat teaspoons of baking powder
½ teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon of vanilla essence

Today I would like to share with you the recipe for a salad which will be excellent for Christmas Eve dinner and for an elegant New Year's Eve party. This two-piece salad will be a decoration for every festival table. The part with salmon, apple, dill pickle and chili pepper is crunchy and fresh and slightly sour, and the second part with beetroot and avocado is nicely creamy and sweet. Both parts complement one another and make a yummy whole.

Ingredients
part with salmon
200g of smoked salmon
half an apple
2 pickled dills
half a chili pepper
3 tablespoons of chives
juice and the peel from half a lemon
1 tablespoon of olive oil
salt and pepper
part with beetroot
2 baked beetroots
1 clove of garlic
juice from half a lemon
1 tablespoon of honey
half an avocado
salt and pepper

Every year before Christmas we open our hearts in a special way. We are nicer to each other, we often smile, we share with needy people more gladly.

And this is what the magic of Christmas is all about. It is a special family time. Sometimes Christmas is nostalgic and full of reflection, and sometimes it is crazy, full of happiness and the rustle of paper during the unwrapping of longed-for presents. Christmas smells of gingerbread cake and Christmas trees glimmering with Christmas tree lights; it tastes of mushrooms and cheesecake.

This year I wish for the magic of Christmas to stay with you for the whole year, for the world around us to be more friendly, for us to be healthy and happy and to have the time and means to realize our dreams. May concerns and misfortunes give us a wide berth.

Merry Christmas!

In my home there are particular dishes which command great enthusiasm in my children. They are pancakes, crepes, meatloaves and cutlets. Sometimes I take advantage of this when preparing these dishes by smuggling in ingredients that they don't really like. To the question 'what did you prepare for dinner?' I can with a clear conscience say that they are frikadelles, without giving any details of what I added to them.

This time there were frikadelles for dinner. On the sly I can tell you that they were with tuna and chickpeas. This part of the scheme was not detected. I couldn't hide the spinach, because the colour of the dish blew my cover. Nevertheless, the dinner was eaten without fuss and to the last crumb because they were really excellent.

Ingredients
1 tin of tuna (200g)
250g of spinach
1 tin of chickpeas (400g)
2 cloves of garlic
half an onion
half a chili pepper
2 teaspoons of butter
2 tablespoons of sesame seeds
4 tablespoons of breadcrumbs
2 eggs
salt and pepper
breadcrumbs and oil for frying

Truly strong spices should consist of star anise, cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves and allspices. After being crushed in a mortar, they impart a warm Christmas flavour to cakes and winter hot drinks. I can't imagine Christmas cakes and crunchy aromatic cookies without spices.

Today I prepared Christmas ginger cake with spices. I found the recipe for this excellent cake at www.cynamonowypyl.blox.pl. It intrigued me with its easy preparation. You know I like this kind of recipe. Plum stew is an interesting ingredient for ginger cake. In this cake the plum stew doesn't serve as a custard but as an ingredient of the cake. Thanks to this the ginger cake is moist and has an inimitably fabulous taste.

Ingredients (25cm cake tin)
300g of flour
50g of caster sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
3 teaspoons of cocoa
2 tablespoons of spices
1 tablespoon of cinnamon
1 teaspoon of baking soda
2 tablespoons of honey
220ml of milk
170g of plum stew
100g of melted butter
2 big eggs
50g of raisins
150g of dark chocolate