Blog B'Day and party snacks

My blog is one year old :) I can't believe it's been a year since I started.

Seems like it was yesterday. :)

Last year I made noodles salad for the New Year's Party.

This time I've made pizza rolls, Caprese salad, cheese sticks and ham rolls.

I've tried to take pictures of everything but, you know, I was rushing through preparations a bit.

 Pizza rolls are just pizza but rolled into a log and cut like cinnamon rolls.

I made pizza rolls for supper a couple of weeks ago - they're pretty easy to make and I think they would freeze really well. 

Caprese salad - mozzarella and tomatoes, but no basil. Instead I mix a bit of olive oil with pesto and pour over salad.

Cheese sticks - out of this recipe or just use store-bought puff pastry, brush it with egg wash and cover with grated cheese.

You can twist the strips of pastry with cheese before baking to make them look nice and swirly :)

Ham rolls - some ham (big slices), cream cheese, chives, black pepper, sweet paprika, pickles (optional).

This is an appetizer that comes together really quick. You could add some chopped olives or finelly chopped bell peppers.

I'll post separate recipes for these snack after the weekend.

 Have an amazing party today 

and

a very lucky, healthy, sweet and delicious New Year 2012!

©2010-2011, copyright Guilty Pleasures

Friday Favs - hot chocolate

 Last but one day of the year :) I'm drinking hot chocolate while completing New Year's Eve party menu.

This time, I'm doing only half of the cooking as we are invited to a party, but still... I'm not going 

empty-handed, am I? :)

Tuna and feta dip (or spread)

A quick post about a dip I made about a week ago.

I was in the mood for tuna but run out off cheese. I had half a packet of feta ...

How bad could they taste together, I thought.

Broccoli and feta dip (salad)

 Vegetable options this winter are pretty slim. I don't like to buy imported veggies. Thus, I'm stuck with frozen veg or nothing at all.

 

One of my absolute favourite frozen veggies is broccoli. I could eat it everyday, seriously.

Easy nutella fudge

I thought I'll be too busy to post anything today, but here you go :)

It's Christmas Eve today in Poland. You could ask what's the big deal, it's Christmas Eve everywhere.

  I think that we prepare and celebrate Christmas Eve so much more than the rest of Christmas.

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas! 

Hope you have fabulous time with your families and friends.

May the food you eat be delicious and non-fattening :)

I'll be posting some of my mums cakes after the holidays and some of my party snack ideas for New Year's Eve, so stay tuned :)

Have a nice weekend everyone and don't eat too much :) (just kidding)

©2010-2011, copyright Guilty Pleasures

Chocolate orange peel

Remember the candied orange peel I made?

Well, it dried all right.

It's delicious on it's own, but... chocolate makes everything better, doesn't it?

So, I dunked my orange peel in chocolate and made it heavenly :)

It's pretty easy to do.

Friday Favs - Xmas presents

I wish I could say I already found all of my presents. 

Alas, I'm still looking for inspiration.

I have made some of the things I want to gift. I crocheted and knitted (the knitted part looks bad) all December. I really hope my family and friends will like what I got them. 

this is a scarf I made for one of my best friends  - it's a crocheted fan scarf out of this pattern which I modified a bit :)

Candied orange peel

I got candy crazy before Xmas :)

There are sooo many amazing and, no doubt, delicious candy and sweet recipes.

My thought go to candied orange peel because I looove oranges and hate wasting food.

Orange muffins 2.0

I made orange muffins some time ago and they would be a complete disaster if I didn't trust my intuition enough to introduce some changes.

I found another one recently and decided to give it a try. I am a bit distrustful of oranges and grapefruit in baked goods. However, I'm also a sucker for their taste so here we go...

Garlic sauce

 I feel that garlic sauce deserves a post on its own. I love it!

I can't think of any other dish I make quite so often.

I can't  imagine a party without the sauce to dip crisps in. There's no Greek salad without it for me anymore.

It's simply delicious!

Friday Favs - first snow

 I've been meaning to knit my hubby a beanie this whole week, but my the lazy part of me took over and I didn't even start. Eh... Thankfully, I'm almost ready with one of my crochet Christmas presents.

Stained glass gingerbread cookies

I can't wait for Christmas, as you probably know by now... Yes, I'm not patient.

And because of that I made gingerbread cookies 4 weeks before Christmas. 

Friday Favs - yarn :)

I'm so excited because my yarn has arrived. I'm crocheting a couple of things and I was running out of yarn. So I thought that I could learn how to knit if I have spare yarn. (Did you notice I love the word 'yarn'?)

Easy apple pie

There's still no snow and I'm in a bad mood. 

To cheer up I'm listening to Xmas music. ('Driving home for Christmas' now) :) 

 I know it's Saturday and there were no Friday Favs this past week.

Instead I had so much work I had no time to post anything. I apologize.
I'll be making an apple pie in a couple of days and hopefully will be able to make good pics.

Bear with me, please. Have a nice weekend!


©2010-2011, copyright Guilty Pleasures

Tuna dip (for doritos)

We had some people over during the weekend and I had to come up with something quick and delicious.

Some time ago I got a recipe for this dip from a friend - you don't get precise measurements here. This time it's solely about the taste. Plus, the final dish is slightly different every time. Always delicious.

I don't have the picture of the dip after mixing because I forgot and quickly there was nothing to photograph. :)

I think it tastes best with spicy doritos or tortilla chips. My husband makes sandwiches with it as well.

The dip in itself may come out a bit bland but you may season it as you like. We put some salt and pepper to taste. I think that paprika would add a bit to its flavour.

Friday Favs - Independence Day

Hello there!

I'm having a lazy day. My hubby's napping. 

Fail-proof muffins and their adult variation

I've made a decision. It wasn't easy but who am I to deny you a recipe for perfect cupcakes or muffins (whatever you call them). 

I got the recipe from a friend and it never failed me. 

Friday Favs

Where did the week go?

I've been posting my first FF last week and thought (oh, silly  me) I have a whole week to pick my favs.

And look where it got me... I have absolutely no idea what my favourites are this week.

I had to look through my bookmarks and that is hard work mainly because I tend to bookmark everything that strikes my fancy and, boy! there's a lot of pretty things on the Internets :)

The amazing apple pie

 My addiction to Pinterest continues :)

Friday Favourites

I'm making this a tradition. Friday Favs - every Friday.

To tell the truth I hope to be motivated and organized enough to blog twice a week. And with Friday Favs I'm going to be here at least once a week. 

Hope you like it!

Pumpkin Cake

I have never eaten pumpkin before last Saturday. I bought a 4,5 kilo pumpkin and made puree. I'm not crazy eco person or anything. You just won't find canned pumpkin in Poland. 

So, yeah... I carved, cut and roasted the orange flesh. I mashed it, cooked it some more and pureed it. I love this orangey yellow it gets. Used some of the puree for the pumpkin cake and froze the rest.

My husband doesn't get my fascination with  pumpkin, but he liked the cake. He likes cake. I married a prefect guy :)

Pumpkin Pie Spice

 Come in handy when baking with pumpkin or adding this special flavour to pies, cakes or coffee.

I couldn't find any in stores so decided to make some myself. Found some good recipes via Pinterest.

My Baking Addiction - Pumpkin Pie Spice (click here for the recipe)

I used this amazing recipe and have to say - it smells fantastic!

©2010-2011, copyright Guilty Pleasures

 Look what I found on

Some tips and tricks to use in your kitchen

Tometoes, feta and deli meat breakfast

It's been a while, hasn't it?

Coraline cookies

 I was baking Mazurek just before Easter and was left with some of the shortcrust. Well, I didn't throw it out obviously. :)

Coffee bean cookies

I love looking for new inspiration on the web. I have a whole separate board on Pinterest devoted to cooking inspiration. I just don't seem to have enough time to try everything that looks soo cool!

Recently I've stumbled upon this Polish blog that I just adore and found this amazing recipe I want to share.

Birthday girl!

 Ok, I didn't want to write about my b'day, but I have a such a lovely day so far...

My best friends surprised me during Easter with an impromptu party and today I went shopping with my mom. I just can't tell you how much I love spending somebody else's money :)


So despite the fact I just got older, I'm just ridiculously happy. Everything seems to be going in the right direction and I couldn't be more thankful.
I'll be hosting a party and will cook and bake something special just for my friends - as soon as I have the pictures I'll put them here to show you.


I'm also glad I started writing this blog and I'm thankful for my readers (if there are any).

I'll just go and soak in the beautiful sun that shines on my birthday :)


Take care!


©2010-2011, copyright Guilty Pleasures

Kraszanki - Polish Easter eggs

Kraszanki are a type of Easter eggs that are made by scratching the surface of a dyed egg with something sharp. You scratch the dye and thus make a drawing on the egg. You can scratch anything you want :) We used to make all kinds of branches and flowers. 

I'll show you how to make kraszanki step by step. 

1. First you need to prepare the dye. You can of course use dyes available at the shops but we always dyed the eggs in natural dye made out of onion peels.You need a pan you don't mind getting coloured  - it happens to some pots and pans. Then you strip the onions of the outer layers - the ones that come of when you rub them with your fingers, the dry papery ones. You may use red onions if you want a slightly reddish colour. For some additional reference on natural colouring look at Tips for Easter. 

2. You pour water over the onion peels - as much water as to cover the eggs you want to dye. Cook the peels for 10 - 15 minutes for them to release colour and then add eggs and boil as long as you need - the colour will be more saturated if you boil eggs longer. Or put the eggs in the water with peels and boil them together (this will take longer). 

3. Let the eggs cool and pick something sharp - a razor, a knife or a compass and scratch away. Look below to see what it really is all about.

4. Show off you beautiful eggs to the whole family and proudly announce that you made them all by yourself :)

5. Optional - eat your kraszanki! - if you dyed your eggs with onion peels or tea leaves you may safely eat them.

Go here to check out mazurek - Polish Easter cake.

Happy Easter!

©2010-2011, copyright Guilty Pleasures

Mazurek with dulce de leche - Polish traditional Easter cake

 I decided to cook and bake things traditional this year. As I've said in the previous post, Easter makes me think of kraszanki and pysanky, but there are many other traditional Polish dishes served at Easter.

I wouldn't be me if I didn't bake a cake and the most popular Easter cake in Poland is mazurek. The word itself means a couple of things but we will be concerned with the sweetest of the meanings.

The cake is extremely simple because you only need to bake a shortcrust bottom and than put a filling on it.

Easter and a bit about Xmas :)

Easter's coming and well I start feeling a bit festive :)

You know how people make this competition about Xmas and Easter - which one is better and stuff. As I love Xmas and the whole Yule season, you may say I'm a bit biased, but times change and so am I. 

The whole commercial thing going on about Xmas is starting to piss me off. 10 years ago I was coming back home form school on November evening and I could feel something on the air. There was the smell of winter and Xmas in the air. Sadly, I haven't felt it for 5-6 years now. 

I've given it some serious thought - well, it was something that I associated with my childhood and you need to feel the child in you or you'll go mad/sad... I can proudly say I nurture the child in me constantly but there are signs you just can ignore. People are getting older and mature and down to earth. I get older and start to feel it and that's just being almost 26. 

So, I've been thinking about the vanishing Xmas feeling and I'm afraid to lose it. There are times when I feel this little, tiny stab of it and get really excited about it. I'm happy I haven't lost it completely but know that'll happen. I'm putting my own life together, getting married soon and stuff and seriously hope for the feeling to come back when we have kids. 

Magic calls to magic, you see.

I have a different feeling connected with Easter. Actually it's more to do with spring than Easter in itself. And most importantly with my birthday that comes right after Easter this year. I remember swinging on a swing my father build and seeing the field of tulips we used to have in our garden. It was so warm I could wear dresses all the time - you know, the ruffles and polka-dot fabric and pink :) I miss the tulips and (don't tell anyone) sometimes I even miss the ruffles and polka dots :)

And after my birthday, we are just one step away form summer, right? That's also part of my childhood memory - May was just an introduction to proper summer (the one with summer holidays, I mean).

But before we have the sun in it's glory, there's still the spring and Easter to enjoy. I have one memory connected solely with Easter and this is making pysanky (in Polish - pisanki). It's a traditional way of decorating hard-boiled eggs. You may want to look at this post by make someting for some info and pictures about traditional wax painted pysanky. I, on the other hand, will show you how to make "crashanky" (I just made that pseudo-English word up, actually it's spelled kraszanki - in Polish).

Please go here to see my step by step tutorial - how to make Polish Easter eggs kraszanki.

And here's the recipe for a traditional Easter pastry.

Happy Easter!

©2010-2011, copyright Guilty Pleasures

Simple shortcrust

I'm adding this shortcrust as a separate post for easier reference. It's the basic shortcrust I use when in need of a crumbly bottom for any cake. I'll be using it for my next cake, Mazurek and for Coraline cookies.

The recipe for shortcrust you find below comes from this book that I constantly use for reference when baking. The pastry is quite sweet and buttery and perfect as a crust for any cake or cookies :)

Flatbread with mushrooms

 
 Last night I had to come up with something quick and easy because I had only 30-40 minutes before K. came home from work. Well, I spent 10 minutes looking through blogs to find this recipe. I saw it earlier that day but didn't remember where to look for it. I think I have to re-organise my bookmarks once again. Having all 30 of my fav blogs in one place and uncategorised can turn to be such a pain in the ass.

Orange muffins - saving a badly written recipe

My obsession with muffins continues... I've been asking my friends for good recipes and, well I got this one (in Polish), I thought, great. But (there always is a but, isn't it?) it turned a nightmare to bake with.

btw: I just looked at the sentence in the brackets and lolled - butt :) 

French toast with cinnamon sugar

A quick idea for breakfast or supper. It's quite sweet.

I've never made French toast before and, come to think of it, I don't know if it's a correct way of making it. But it turned out tasty :)

Soft and moist cocoa muffins with pudding

These are the foolproof muffins from a recipe given by a friend. And they are amazing - so soft and moist, even next day.

Leftover chili casserole with mushrooms and pasta

Since we didn't manage to eat the chili the day I made it and I have an aversion to eating the same dish for two consecutive days I decided to make a casserole.

It quite easy to make and quick too, if you have everything on hand. Still, it's easy to adapt this recipe to use anything you've got in the fridge/pantry.

Chili with pork and beans

I was meaning to try this for some time and never actually had the time. This is meant to be a dinner dish as it's quite nutritious. I think it would be too heavy for supper.

I served it with rolls and buttered bread, but I think rice would great as well.

I know that some people would not call my stew chili because of the pork in it, but that's what I made so live with it :)

Not so healthy breakfast

I didn't do it, I swear.
My K. seems to think that the greasier the food the better... or tastier.

After I refused to eat fried eggs for the third day in a row, he made himself this:

God only knows how he manages to fry the whites and leave the yolks almost raw (which is pretty disgusting for me). It doesn't look as greasy as it really was, believe me.

I swear I can hear his arteries closing...
Good we bought a basketball yesterday :)

And I made some stew today - will post it some time soon.

I honestly can look at that picture for long,  it grosses me out blah

Layered tuna salad

It's quite a quick recipe and a variation of my long favourite tuna salad with grated cheese (gonna post it sometime).

Pretty easy to make and serves quite an amount of people (hope it will be enough for 5 people tonight).

Hope you like it!

See T Shirt Shrug and 1000's of others - or share your own on Cut Out + Keep


this is soo simple I'm doing it as soon as I find some suitable T-shirt :)

Vincent the Koala - amigurumi koala :)

I've made something, well actually he's someone :)

Cinammon rolls

I made rolls form this recipe (it's in Polish) and they are terrific :)

I made one batch with cinnamon sugar and the other with blackberry jam... I like pure cinnamon rolls slightly more than the jam ones.. I don't know why the cinnamon rolls seem a bit more delicate and soft... it's weird because I baked both types for about 25-30 minutes...

To think of it, I might have not brushed the blackberry rolls with egg wash before putting in the oven... hmm...

But I perfectly remember adding melted butter on top every single blackberry roll and sprinkling them with some cinnamon sugar :) What can I say I looove cinnamon :D

poached eggs with smoked salmon - breakfast

A quick post before I start making cinnamon rolls (because of Fat Thursday)

I had this craving for eggs with green onions... and I had to do something with smoked salmon bits (actually they're called "salmon tummies" :))

Banana cake

This is a banana cake adapted from here  (via here) with some modifications of mine.

It's simple once you get past the roll as I did, thank you Tesco :) and it is truly delicious... not to sweet, just sweet enough for K. to eat half of it when I was at work :)

Unfortunately I didn't manage to take pics of the cake at all stages but once you see the original from the link you'll get it... If you want to do it my way you won't need to do half of it...

Yesterday's buns - today's savory supper

It's been some time since my last post but now I have time and I present a little something I made some time ago.
So... if you have some yesterday's (or semi-stale) buns this is a way of utilising them :)

I came up with the idea when we both (I & my fiance) bought buns one day and, being only the two of us, weren't able to eat them up before they went stale... And I'm not a person to throw away food even if it's a bit stale :) (Jeez, it sounds so corny, doesn't it?)

It was obvious we will stuff them with something but I had to look for inspiration and some practical advice and found some in my first cooking book (it's in Polish and about Polish cuisine)

The buns are so easy to make, you can even ask your kids to help as it's so easy :)

Source: bakerella.com via Pinterest on Pinterest

so inspiring, aren't they :)

Things I'm loving :)

It took more time than I expected initially, but it's all because I started learning how to crochet and it takes so much time (for me, at least) to pull two pieces of yarn together :P

Also, my friend visited us during the weekend and I properly sobered up on Monday (I'm getting older each day, eh...)

And, we've started making some preparations for the wedding (our parents started nagging, you know) which also takes time...

honey & jam | recipes + photos: Things I'm Loving

I think I'll look for the things I'm loving right now, just after I finish baking bread :)

honey & jam | recipes + photos: Things I'm Loving

Chocolate cake

I felt the urge to bake again, but as I didn't have an oven till today (I bought one today <sooo happy>) I had to raid my mum's kitchen

Being soo inspired by this recipe I decided to try it out with some modifications (as I didn't have some of the ingredients and didn't feel like going out to buy them- lazy me!)

not crafty at all

I've always thought I'm crap at crafts... and I was always right, because I can't sew or knit or draw (you name it) even at gunpoint...  BUT

after this post from gluten-free girl I realised that there is one thing I seriously can do and this is cooking...
I'm not exactly modest here, I know... but it's really difficult for me to ruin a dish (I failed abysmally a couple of times, all right), but the point is - even if it (i.e. the dish) is too salty or too spicy it's somehow ok for me

it seems that the food lives it's own life and if it's meant to be too spicy it will be no matter what you do...
I'm raving I know :)

too much cheap wine with AMAZING Greek salad my fiancé made

not the original salad we ate today, but almost (except for pepper) identical

a good evening is as good as the people you spend it with (even if you're on your own - I always value my alone time the most)

Have a good night!