Once, when I planned pancakes for dinner, I always used to think about potato pancakes. I prepared them with onion and pepper and served them with sugar or cream. A few years ago, when I was carving a Jack O' Lantern, I made pumpkin pancakes for the first time. I prepared them like potato pancakes, but they were milder, and we liked them so much that we forgot about potato ones for a long time.

Today I prepared these yummy and very simple pancakes. I used butternut squash, which is my new favourite food. You can prepare the fig preserve from fresh fruit. We brought some excellent fig preserve back from our summer holiday. It went very well with these summer pumpkin pancakes. For anyone who doesn't like fruit in their pancakes, I recommend maple syrup or natural yoghurt.

Ingredients (for 20 pancakes)
600g of peeled pumpkin
half an onion
5 tablespoons of flour
2 eggs
salt and pepper
oil for frying

Herrings with potatoes is a very painful memory of the school canteen for many of us. Though we like herrings with onion, I rarely serve it for dinner. Today I decided to break this rule and prepared herrings for dinner. I served herrings and potatoes once again, but in a completely different way.

I served baked jacket potatoes. The herrings were excellent with cream sauce and onion, apple and dill pickles. See for yourself if you like this way of preparing herrings.

Ingredients (for 2 people)
6 potatoes
2 tablespoons of olive oil
200g of herrings in oil
200g of 18% cream
1 tablespoon of mayonnaise
1 tablespoon of mustard
half an onion
1 apple
3 dill pickles
2 tablespoons of minced dill

Well, it's autumn. But for the fact that after the autumn comes winter, which I don't like, it could be quite pleasant. Chestnuts, acorns, colourful crackling leaves underfoot and fresh vegetables – that's what I like about autumn. No other season is as rich and colourful.

Today I would like to share with you the recipe for a dish which suits the autumn atmosphere perfectly. It is colourful like an autumn landscape and one of the ingredients is the most autumnal vegetable - i.e. pumpkin.

Ingredients (for 4 people)
250g of wholemeal penne
500g of pumpkin
200g of cherry tomatoes
200g of courgette
1 onion
3 cloves of garlic
4 sprigs of thyme
3 sprigs of rosemary
100ml of olive oil
4 tablespoons of Parmesan
salt and pepper

Everyone can see what the weather is like outside. I think the summer has forgotten that it should go on until 21st September. For two weeks - almost without pause - it has been raining and windy, and the temperature doesn't really enthuse. Maybe it should be this way to help pupils at the beginning of the school year. It is difficult to learn when it is sunny outside and the bike and ball are more appealing than books.

Today I would like to propose an almost-autumn fiery soup with white vegetables and pears. The chili pepper and ginger give the soup an interesting flavour and warm us up on rainy afternoons.

Ingredients (for 3 people)
¼ small celery root
10 cm piece of leek (white part)
2 parsley roots
2 cm piece of ginger
2 big pears
2 tablespoons of butter
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
vegetable stock
salt and pepper
half a chili pepper
1 tablespoon of nigella

In my family home mushroom soups were always served with noodles or potatoes. One day I forgot about proper shopping and experimentally I made mushroom soup with barley groats. My children looked at it slightly suspiciously, but the soup was surprisingly tasty.

This time with premeditation I added millet groats to excellent seasonal chanterelle soup . If I have to choose which is better for me: with potatoes, noodles or groats I couldn't decide. They are all great.

Ingredients (4 people)
500g of chanterelles
3 carrots
2 parsley roots
¼ of a small celery root
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
2 tablespoons of butter
100g of millet groats