When my kids asked me what I was going to serve for dinner, I answered with a wink that it would be a cake. I was almost telling the truth. It really was a cake but this time not a sweet one. It was a French pastry tart with smoked salmon. I used hot smoked salmon, but you can use cold smoked salmon or lightly fried fresh fish.

When making this dish I couldn't decide between cold smoked fish and hot smoked fish. Hot smoked fish is boiled and smoked at 50-85C. The salt content is lower so the use-by date is shorter than with cold smoked fish. The process of cold smoking happens at 15-25C and there is no boiling involved. The outside of the fish is first strongly dried and then the fish is smoked. The salt content is higher so the use-by date is longer than that of hot smoked fish.

Ingredients:

1 pack of chilled French pastry

300g of fresh spinach leaves

1 tablespoon of butter

2 cloves of garlic

1 broccoli

200g of hot smoked salmon

3 eggs

150ml of 30% sweet cream

150g of grated mozzarella cheese

salt and pepper

Christmas and Easter are festivals when traditional dishes appear on the table. It sometimes turns out that the thought of preparing the same dishes once again doesn't bring any enjoyment. The creative housewife tries to think of something new. The question is which dishes to serve to keep the spirit of the festival, while at the same time making something new. It was the same last Easter. My sister prepared eggs in Parma ham baskets for the first time. The dish was excellent and now it is on our menu. I made it recently, but I freshened it up a bit.

I leave the decorations and way of serving to your imagination. I would only like to add that you could, just like my daughter, cover everything with a huge amount of tomato sauce. Apparently, it tastes great... Well, it is probably a matter of taste. I only feel that under the tomato sauce there could be a tart with plums and my daughter wouldn't notice the difference.

Ingredients (for two people):

6 slices of Parma ham

2 tablespoons of olive oil from dried tomatoes

4 dried tomatoes in olive oil

a fistful of baby spinach leaves

2 eggs

1 clove of garlic

2 tablespoons of Parmesan

salt and pepper

I didn't know that cake with pineapple from a tin is an American invention. First I made it, then I did some digging and now I know all about it. In the original recipe, it is an upturned cake. I made my own version with pineapple slices on top, just like I usually do when making cakes with fruit. Next time I will do it the American way.

This is one of those cakes which is tastier the next day, when the cake is moist from the fruit. It is simple, cheap and perfect with afternoon coffee at home.

Ingredients:

125g of butter

270g of flour

4 eggs

1 teaspoon of baking powder

125g of sugar

3 tablespoons of desiccated coconut

1 tablespoon of vanilla sugar

3 tablespoon of caster sugar

1 tin of pineapple

Today I would like to share with you a recipe for a satisfying breakfast or early supper. Pumpernickel with smoked salmon looks interesting, and my son couldn't decide whether it looks more like a sandwich or a cake.

Pumpernickel probably comes from Germany and in the XVII century its name meant 'sad layer', bread that is hard to digest. It is dark, baked in a baking pan, sourdough, with coarse-grained rye flour, honey, treacle or extract from apples and malt. Pumpernickel is brown, sometimes almost black. It is baked at a low temperature (120-150C) but for a very long time of up to 16 hours.

Pumpernickel has a low glycemic index (46) so it is perfect for people who have an active lifestyle, exercise often, and would like to lose weight.

Ingredients:

4 slices of pumpernickel

2 tablespoons of butter

a half of clove of garlic

2 tablespoons of minced dill

100g of smoked salmon

Today's dish appeared on our menu after my husband went on a trip with his male friends. I found out that on such trips men do not only drink beer, eat crisps and for lunch order pizza or hamburgers. Very 'male' food has many advantages: it is simple, doesn't need any sophisticated ingredients or complicated preparation. It is practical in the positive sense of the word. I think for this reason, dishes made with courgette and pepper appeal to us.

I always have the following ingredients in my kitchen: courgette, pepper, onion, garlic and pesto. Because it only needs a short time to prepare, this dish is excellent on busy days.

It is immensely important not to overdo the vegetable. If the vegetables are not crunchy, the dish will lose its character and it won't look nice. If you like monochromatic combinations, you can add green pepper to the courgette, and if you like colourful dishes, you can combine it with various peppers.

Ingredients:

1 big courgette

1 pepper

1 onion

2 cloves of garlic