Some time ago I often did my shopping at one of the hypermarkets which offers online sales. I was glad of this. I did the shopping at a time that was convenient for me, I decided on my own date of delivery, and the neatly packed products were delivered right next to my fridge. I could pay any way I liked: by wire transfer, by cash or by card. It saves time and is comfortable, especially if for some reason you don't want to, or you can't, go out.

You can describe your demands regarding products by leaving comments. If there are any unavailable products or if the products don't satisfy you, the staff of the hypermarket discuss the changes by telephone. Unfortunately, like in every place where people work, mistakes can happen. In the 13 years in which I did online shopping, there were literally only a couple of mistakes and they were not very serious.

Thanks to one such mistake, instead of a small tin of Indian corn I got a huge one. The amount of Indian corn was so large I could have prepared a salad for a garrison. For my family it was too much to eat in one meal. I used some of it for salads and the rest remained in my fridge and made me nervous every time I opened it. For this reason I prepared a fiery and surprisingly tasty soup with coconut milk, chili pepper, lime peel and sesame.

Ingredients:

800g of Indian corn from a tin

1 tin of coconut milk

Everybody knows about stuffed cabbage, which is for some reason called "gołąbki". Traditionally, it consists of a meat stuffing wrapped in leaves of white cabbage. The traditional ingredients of the stuffing are pork mincemeat and rice. Nowadays, as well as white cabbage we wrap the stuffing in leaves of savoy cabbage or mild leaves of young cabbage, and there are as many kinds of stuffing as there are creative chefs.

Many countries in the world have their own gołąbki, not always wrapped in cabbage leaves. We know very well small Greek meat dolmades in grape leaves. To the stuffed cabbage we can add different seasonings and sauces, and we prepare them in many different ways. In the Czech Republic and Slovakia stuffed cabbages are called hołubce, in some regions of the United States they are called glubkis, and in Germany they are known as Krautwickel/Kohlrouladen. This dish is known in  Sweden as kåldolmar, and in Finland kaalikääryleet. On the Balkan Peninsula similar dishes are called sarme.

In my family home we ate gołąbki wrapped in white cabbage leaves with a meat filling without rice. Now for my family I make something similar, but sometimes I split with tradition and I use savoy cabbage rather than white cabbage, and to the filling I add rice or I make vegetarian stuffed cabbage with buckwheat groats and vegetables.

Today I would like to share with you a recipe (in my opinion) for the most traditional stuffed cabbages with meat, rice and tomato sauce.

Ingredients:

1 white cabbage

1kg of mincemeat

2 onions

As far as I know, we live in a cold temperate climate. We should have everything just right, but we sometimes have some extremes. A dry and blistering summer like something from hell has just finished and everybody is looking forward with relief to a beautiful golden autumn. And what do we have? It's the first half of October and ... it's winter. And so I ask: where is the moderate weather?

This weather doesn't serve to lift my mood. My friend who is a blogger says that everybody has difficult times when they need to lie on the sofa under a duvet and pretend not to exist. I recently felt like this. Unfortunately, I can't lie on the sofa because of my duties, so my husband set out to lift my mood by preparing a simple but imaginative and very tasty breakfast. It later emerged that the afflatus came from a TV program by Karol Okrasa, but my husband's execution was original. Master Okrasa warned us not to change the ingredients. The lightly salty and original taste of goat cheese goes well with the sweetness of the honey and walnuts.

Ingredients:

4 slices of white bread (French bread or challah)

100g of goat's cottage cheese

4 tablespoons of honey

50g of walnuts

Autumn is a time for plums. Nowadays there are lots of kinds of plum and it is difficult to decide which one to choose. Lucky are those who own an orchard with plum trees. They may pick the kind of fruit they like: less ripe or with so much juice that after one bite it makes your mouth water.

In Poland the most famous are peachy plums called jerozolimka, greengages and purple plums.

Choose your favorite plums and prepare like me a very simple desert: French pastry decoratively braided, filled with plums and with brown sugar and cinnamon.

Ingredients:

1 pack of chilled French pastry

600g of plums

1 tablespoon of cinnamon

4 tablespoons of brown sugar

1 tablespoon of vanilla sugar

2 tablespoons of milk

2 teaspoons of caster sugar

The pumpkin is a magical vegetable. You can prepare fantastic Halloween decorations with it, but there are unlimited cooking uses for it as well. You can bake, boil or fry it. You can prepare cakes, crumpets, soups and stews. The diversity of dishes depends only on your imagination.

And even though it isn't Halloween today, on my table there is pumpkin soup. It is the easiest pumpkin dish I know. You should use it for your first attempt at cooking pumpkins. The beautiful colour of the soup should be considered as the promise of a creamy and very autumnal taste. The soup is delicately sweet, but you can prepare a more piquant version by adding chili pepper.

Ingredients:

2 kg of pumpkin

100ml of coconut milk

1 onion

2 cloves of garlic