Pęczotto and risotto are my current favourite dishes. Risotto is a dish which needs involvement and intuition. One ladle of bouillon too many and we have overcooked rice. In this respect pęczotto is much easier. I don't know anybody who can overcook pearl barley 

The recipe for risotto and pęczotto is similar. We cook slowly and add ladle by ladle hot bouillon until we have a dish with a wonderful creamy texture. Groats and mushrooms taste excellent together, so I decided to prepare pęczotto with mushrooms and spinach. Instead of parmesan I added grated cheddar to my pęczotto. It was a great combination of ingredients.

Ingredients (for 2 people)
120g of pearl barley
1 shallot
2 cloves of garlic
0.5kg of mushrooms
2 fistfuls of new spinach
4 tablespoons of grated cheddar
3 tablespoons of butter
2 tablespoons of pistachios
150ml of dry white wine
1.5l of vegetable bouillon

As every year before Christmas, I will prepare traditional herrings with onion, and herrings with cream sauce with apples and pickled cucumber. Also, just like every year I will try out a few new herring recipes. For a start, I recommend herring salad with red currants and cashew nuts. The fat fish is excellent with sour fresh fruit and the nuts are nice and crunchy. I add a bit of chilli pepper and a lot of parsley to spice up my salad. If you like, replace the parsley with coriander. Chill the salad before serving. It tastes much better than just after preparation.

Ingredients (for 2 people)
4 pieces of herring in oil
2 fistfuls of red currants
2 tablespoons of olive oil
a piece of chili pepper
2 tablespoons of chopped parsley
half a small onion
1 tablespoon of maple syrup
2 tablespoons of lemon juice
a fistful of cashew nuts

I would like to share with you the recipe for a yummy dinner salad inspired by the most famous French salad – Nicoise. Since I decided that the salad should be for dinner, the ingredients were hot: green beans, hard boiled eggs and salmon. In the original Nicoise salad there is tuna. I added smoked salmon to my dish. Additionally, I fried it in a dry pan and I was surprised – it was excellent. I prepared a yoghurt-horseradish sauce for the salad, because I like fish and green beans with this spicy relish.

Ingredients (for 2 people)
0.5kg of green beans
200g of smoked salmon
a fistful of black olives
a fistful of pistachios
4 eggs
4 teaspoons of natural yoghurt
2 big teaspoons of horseradish
salt and pepper

Annual preparation for Christmas is coming to order. The Advent Calendar, gingerbread cookies, mushrooms, dumplings, herrings and Christmas tree; everything has its proper time, even cleaning the apartment and pre-Christmas window cleaning. Some people say that even if the windows are dirty, Christmas will still happen, and that's true. But I like to spend Christmas time in a clean home. Thanks to these activities, little by little, we make the magic of Christmas.

Today I would like to share with you the recipe for chocolate Christmas tree cake. I fill it with cream made with mascarpone cheese, white chocolate and cherry confiture. Add some colourful Christmas confectionery decorations and the Christmas table is complete. If you decide to make this cake, bake it one day before. It is easier to cut and decorate it.

Ingredients:
dough
110g of flour
100ml of oil
1 banana
1 tablespoon of peanut butter
100g of brown sugar
1 tablespoon of cocoa
150ml of natural yoghurt
1 teaspoon of baking powder
a pinch of salt
100g of chocolate drops

Maybe for some people it sounds strange, but sometimes I don't want sandwiches with meat. Then I make something else. When I have enough time I prepare pâté with vegetables, fish and meat, but most often I make pastes. Generally, we like all pastes, but there are exceptions. One of them is avocado paste. Pieces of avocado are an edible salad ingredient, but crushed avocado is inedible.

When I found the recipe for guacamole with quinoa at www.naszakasza.pl I decided to make it for myself. The tip in the recipe says it is excellent with roast salmon or chicken, but I ate it the way I like the most – with dark bread. I recommend it!

Ingredients
1 avocado
75g of quinoa
a small red pepper
a piece of chili pepper
1 clove of garlic
half a shallot
1 tablespoon of lemon juice
salt and pepper