What is your favourite smell in the kitchen? I have a few. Smell of onion and garlic hitting sizzling oil. Smell of cinnamon baking in apple pie. Smell of yeast and freshly baked bread… There’s almost nothing that is better than freshly baked bread. Don’t you think so? Last summer I had a few problems…
{Recipe} Roasted fennel with parmesan
I don’t like liquorice. I mean I really don’t like it. So, knowing that fennel has anise-like taste, I always avoided it. Well, that is until it was part of an antipasto platter at a tiny Italian restaurant. Everything looked so good: beautiful, glistening with oil, roasted peppers, sweet garlic, grilled to perfection eggplant and a…
{Recipe} Spatchcocked and Braise-Roasted Chicken
I have many cookbooks which I love reading and leafing through from time to time, but to be completely honest, I don’t cook from those books too often. I read them, I make a mental note that I’d like to make this or that dish, but I usually don’t have needed ingredients on hand and…
Chocolate Mint Crackle Cookies
These Chocolate-Mint Crackle Cookies are perfect little mint cookies to make during winter holidays. They are soft, intensely chocolatey and refreshingly minty. Back in November, when all stores were full of festive spirit, green and red decor and Christmas carols, I stumbled upon a set of tiny little bottles of various mint oils and flavourings…
{Recipe} Nutella stuffed cupcakes
When I started experimenting in the kitchen, I wasn’t trying to cook, I was trying to bake. Baking is my first love. Surprisingly, I started not with cookies, nor with muffins or cupcakes; I started with fancy layered cakes with different kinds of mousse fillings and homemade lady fingers. Those cakes turned out so great,…
{Recipe} Classic Scones
It’s New Year’s Eve today and I’d like to finish this year on something positive. It’s been a very tough year. I think it’s safe to say that it was the most difficult year for me and I’m glad to leave it behind. And what’s more positive than husband making me scones for breakfast because I…
{Recipe} Nutella Brownies
This is not a new recipe. I tried it first time two years ago around the holidays and it was a hit, but I never got a chance to post it here on my blog. Actually, I haven’t really posted anything on my blog for about two years until a few months ago. Oh, well……
Cranberry and White Chocolate Cookies
I have an annual tradition of hosting a Holiday Brunch for my girlfriends. We see each other throughout the year, but it’s quite rare when we can all get together in a small intimate group without our partners. So, once a year I host a Brunch at my place where we drink copious amounts of…
Thin Apple Tart
Rant. I actually wrote this post a week ago, and then something happened to my blogging platform and the blog post got deleted. Unfortunately, Squarespace 6 does not support restore functionality or any kind of recycle bin just yet. I’m really hoping they’ll get it in soon as I don’t want to move to another…
Everything new is well-forgotten old
There’s a Russian expression: “Everything new is actually well-forgotten old…” So, today is the first post in my new/old blog. I missed blogging. It’s been over two years since my last post and I am eager to start writing and sharing again. What do I start with? Well, first of all, I’d like to introduce…
