I recently dusted off my old recipes for pastes, humus and other nice additions for bread. Today I recommend a paste with sunflower seeds with some dried tomatoes and black olives. It was yummy, and it was a great change for my sandwiches. My husband spiced it up with horseradish, and my children prefer the paste without dried tomatoes, because they just don't like them .

Ingredients
100g of sunflower seeds
4 dried tomatoes
6-8 black olives
1 clove of garlic
1-2 tablespoons of lemon juice
salt and pepper

My children don't like dried tomatoes, so this swift lunch was only for me. Spicy red pesto with dried tomatoes, roasted cashew nuts and parmesan was excellent. My children didn't even know what a yummy dish they refused. If I have to choose which pesto I like most, I can't do it. I like green pesto with basil, and red pesto with dried tomatoes. Both of them are delicious. What kind of pesto do you like?

Ingredients (for 2 people)
10 dried tomatoes in olive oil
100ml of olive oil
A fistful of roasted cashew nuts
4 tablespoons of parmesan
1 clove of garlic
1 small chili pepper
150g of penne
2 sausages
10 black olives

A few years ago in Poland we had a difficult time when in sweet shops they only had products which had nothing to do with chocolate. Mums had to prepare their own candies for their children. My mum very often baked cakes and made sugar lollypops, sweet oat or rice balls. You can make these sweets in no time, and the children - eager for sweets - ate them just as quickly.

This difficult time is fortunately behind us, but I often make small, sweet oat balls for my children. Today I would like to share with you the recipe for nutty candy bars made with peanut butter and expanded rice. They are very easy to make and really yummy. Ask your children to prepare the sweets with you. They will be delighted to make their own dessert. I recommend it!

Ingredients:
4 tablespoons of peanut butter
150g of white chocolate
75-100g of expanded rice
50g of dark chocolate
a fistful of pistachios

Since my daughter stopped eating lunch at school I have had a permanent culinary problem. What should I make for lunch? There are moments when I don't have a clue and my creativity plays hide and seek. Sometimes I ask my children what they want. They always want tomato soup, spaghetti, borsch with ravioli and crepes. All these dishes are very yummy, but in the long run they can get boring. Chili con carne we know as a main course served with rice. Today I needed soup for my lunch, so I prepared chili con carne soup.

Ingredients (for 4 people)
400g of minced beef meat
500ml of tomato passata
500ml of beef bouillon
1 red sweet pepper
1 tin of red beans
1 tin of sweetcorn
1 red onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 chili pepper
1 tablespoon of butter
2 tablespoons of oil
1 teaspoon of sweet paprika
half a teaspoon of cumin
a pinch of curry powder
salt and pepper

Because of the stressful secondary school enrolment period, our holiday this year had to be cut very short. But, so as not to spend time at home and wonder if the amount of points that our daughter earned are enough for her to go to her dream school, we went on a short trip. We managed to see a lot of diverse attractions. There was something for the body and something for the mind, some history, a little ecology, some physical effort, a lot of fun and time spent together. One of the most interesting stops was Hydropolis – the water museum in Wroclaw.

The museum is housed in a XIX century, antique container of fresh water for Wroclaw. The container fulfilled its role till 2011, and now it is the Center of Ecology Education - Hydropolis.

The name of the museum sounds boring. It brings to mind posters, dusty exhibits, felt slippers and a woman that stands in the corner of the room and makes sure that nobody is touching the exhibits. In Hydropolis you will be nicely surprised. There are no slippers, no dust and... you can touch everything. This place was created for tourists, so they can roll, touch, press, play and check how everything works. For me, as a mom of a curious 8-year-old boy, that was a relief. Finally, I didn't have to run behind my son and all the time say "don't touch".

The exhibition starts with a movie in an unusually round hall with a pond. Be careful not to drop your bag or backpack in it. The exhibition consists of nine areas where you can look at the water from another perspective. You can find there a lot of information about the oceans and the most mysterious and inaccessible depths where scary creatures live. You can see the bathyscaphe, visit the Titanic and find sunken wrecks.