Eggplant salad with tomatoes and sweet pepper

This salad is very simple and very tasty. The main ingredient - fried eggplant. The rest of the vegetables will be fresh, so the salad will turn out juicy. A small amount of vinegar or lemon juice and garlic adds more taste.

American Apple Pie

Try out this wonderful American classic - apple pie!

Ingredients (12 servings):

Crust:

• 4 dl all-purpose flour
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 150 g butter, cold
• 1/2 dl cold water 

Filling:

• 1 kg green apples
• 1/2 dl lemon juice
• 1 1/2 dl sugar
• 1 1/2 tbsp all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp vanilla sugar (or vanilla extract)
• 25 g butter, melted

Directions: 

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C. 
2. In a small bowl, mix together flour, sugar and cold butter (crumble the butter with your hands). Add water. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes. 
3. Peel the apples, remove the seeds and the center, and cut them into small cubes. In a large bowl, incorporate the apples with lemon juice. Add flour, cinnamon, vanilla sugar and melted butter. 
4. Divide the dough into two unequal parts: one larger and one smaller. Take the larger part and roll out the dough. Place it into a 26-30 cm diameter baking form. Make sure that the rolled out dough is slightly larger in diameter than the baking form, so that the edges of the dough come out to the walls of the form. 
5. Place the filling on top. Roll out the remaining part of the dough, and place it to cover the filling. Using your fingers to close the pie by attaching together the edges of the two parts of the dough. Use a knife to make small incisions in the crust.
6. Bake for 35 minutes. Serve with ice cream or vanilla cream.  

Sour Cream Pancakes

This recipe is very quick and easy. It makes very tasty, sweet and airy pancakes! You can serve them on a weekend morning with maple syrup, fresh berries, chocolate sauce etc.

 

Spaghetti with red onion and blue cheese

Caramelized red onion goes really well with bacon/ham and and blue cheese. The dish is very quick and easy to prepare, perfect for week nights, but also for dinner parties!

Pavlova Cake

Finally, I decided to share my all-time favorite Pavlova cake recipe! I love this cake, not only for its delicious taste, but also for its beautiful appearance. As many of you know, the cake was named after a famous ballerina Anna Pavlova. I feel like the shape of this meringue cake resembles a ballet dress!

Cabbage Rolls

Cabbage rolls is a popular dish in Ukrainian and Russian cuisine. Typically, cabbage leaves are wrapped in minced meat or chopped vegetables. This dish has a funny name: the word golubcy is very similar to the word golubi,which means pigeons in Russian. Surprisingly enough, the name of this dish has French origins. In late 17th and early 18th centuries Russia experienced a humongous 'boom' of French cuisine. During those times it was quite trendy to eat pigeons, fried on an open fire. Later on, they started cooking the so-called 'fake pigeons' aka golubcy. 

The reason why I chose this dish for the summer time is due the fact that cabbage is very ripe and tender in summer.  

Orange Cake

My dear readers! 

I'm back! First of all, I would like to explain my long absence on the blog. The reason for it is the fact that my daughter got married! Whilst this event evoked so many joyful and wonderful emotions in me and our whole family, it also involved a whole lot of preparation and organization, as all weddings do! The wedding was in France, and just to sum up: it was beautiful and very romantic!

But now all the wedding hassles are behind us, I can finally focus on my blog again!

Orange cake

I find that cakes and pastries with fresh oranges have a nice citric, fresh and juicy taste. This cake is well suited for birthday or dinner parties since it looks quite festive! But it doesn't take much effort and skills to prepare, as all the recipes that I share on this blog.

Baked Potato with Fried Mushrooms and Cheese

These baked potatoes stuffed with mushrooms and cheese are delicious and don't require much effort to prepare. It's perfect for a weekend dinner!

Chicken Sausages with Garlic

 

If you wish to make something rather light, yet nutritious and easy to prepare for dinner, then this recipe is for you. These so-called "chicken sausages" are perfect for busy weekday evenings; they require very little ingredients and they don't have to be marinated. You can also serve them hot (with some potatoes, rice or pasta) or cold (as a sandwich filling, for example), as you wish. In my opinion, they're delicious either way.

 

No-bake Chocolate 'Potato' Pastry

The name is a little funny, especially since this pastry literally has nothing to do with potatoes. I have no clue why it was named like that, maybe it's the shape... However, what I love the most about this pastry is that it's a raw dessert, as it involves no baking.

Guacamole

 

Guacamole is a very versatile sauce: it's good with tortilla chips, fajitas, burritos... But also, in my opinion, it could serve as a perfect side dish or even as a replacement for a salad! In any case, it's very delicious and nutritious! The recipe was adapted from Chichilicious.

                                                                                                                                               

Blondies

I love brownies and soon will most likely post a recipe of one. But in the meantime, I decided to share this blondie recipe. This recipe is perfect if you're in the mood for something chocolaty but you're out of dark or milk chocolate, and, of course, for all the white chocolate lovers out there! 

The recipe was adapted from Smitten Kitchen.

                                                                                                                   

Easy Homemade Peach Lemonade

Summer is coming soon and this calls, of course for summer recipes! My first summer recipe on the blog will be this wonderful homemade peach lemonade. What can be better than a nice, cool, sweet drink to enjoy on a hot summer afternoon? Better yet, it's homemade: no store bought lemonade can beat that, since there's no added unhealthy ingredients! A little note: you can also be make it with blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, etc. The recipe was adapted from a wonderful blog Divas Can Cook.

                                                                                                                                           

Banana Waffles

I have another very easy recipe to share with you - banana waffles! I love regular waffles too, but this time I decided to try something new and added bananas. Ah, so good! I won't say much about waffles since everybody knows what a great breakfast/brunch they make. The best thing about them is that they're very quick to make and you can top them with pretty much everything you desire: chocolate sauce, maple syrup, crushed nuts, vanilla cream, ice cream, fresh berries, etc. The recipe was adapted from Lynn's Kitchen Adventures.

                                                                                                                                                    

Nutella Easter Tarts

Each year I bake the traditional Easter Kulich and dye eggs. But this year I thought it would be a great idea to also make these yummy and fun Easter tarts with Nutella filling and raspberry frosting. I made them, we all loved them, so here I am sharing the recipe with you! The recipe was adapted from Kinuskikissa.

I wish you all happy Easter!

                                                                                                                                                               

Banana Bread with Chocolate Chips

If you have some bananas lying around and no clue what to do with them, I have a perfect recipe for you! Banana bread. I (and my family) fell in love with this dessert years ago, and I just realized that I still haven't shared it here on the blog. It's so simple to make, you don't even need to use an electric mixer. And needless to say that it tastes amazing! Keep in my mind that the bananas have to be quite ripe, that way your banana bread will turn out more moist and flavorful.

The recipe was adapted Smitten Kitchen. If you're like me and you like bananas in desserts, you can also check out my recipes of Banana Muffins and Banoffee Pie (no-bake). 

                                                                                                                                                          

Cheese and Garlic Ham Rolls

I decided to share another classic appetizer recipe of mine. Whenever we have some event in our family that calls for a big dinner party, I make these cheese and garlic ham rolls. The best thing about this recipe is that it's very quick, cheap and easy to make! You can also modify the filling to your liking, for example by adding some parsley or chives.

 

Sandwich Cake

In Finland sandwich cakes are very popular and they're usually served on some special occasions or events. It's probably because this savory dish is very delicious, goes well with a great deal of other foods, and serves as a beautiful decoration on the table. 

I made my cake with smoked turkey but there are endless variations of the fillings that you can make for this cake. For example, fish, vegetable, ham, and chicken all work really well also. The recipe was adapted from here.

Condensed Milk Chocolate Cake

My family loves this chocolate cake with condensed milk! I've been baking it for over 20 years now. It's not complicated at all to make and it's very tasty. In my opinion it resembles the famous Austrian Sachertorte a little, they're both very chocolaty. I have to admit that this cake is not very light, but when it tastes so heavenly, what does it matter :)

The recipe was adapted from here. 

Easy Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

Last weekend I decided to try out this very easy and quick recipe of a pineapple upside-down cake. It turned out delicious, and very nice looking as well!

The recipe was adapted from Pirkka.

Seasoned Rice with Chicken

This is my version of the Uzbek plov dish. The main difference is the fact that I use chicken instead of lamb. Also, I've simplified the recipe quite a bit. Actually, I came up with this version of the recipe a long time ago: between a full-time job and two small children, I barely had any time left to cook during the day, so I needed a recipe that would be rather simple and most importantly quick to prepare, and the prepared food would last us for a couple of days. My kids are all grown up now and my life is not that hectic anymore, but this dish still remains a favorite in our family.

Raspberry Smoothie

Yesterday I discovered this great smoothie recipe! It's fresh, light and most importantly healthy! I used orange juice as a base, but it can be easily replaced with milk or coconut cream. Pineapple juice works great as well; it adds a nice tropical taste to the smoothie. 

Nutella Brownies

This is a truly wonderful brownie recipe: it involves only three main ingredients and it takes only about 15 minutes in total to make! The main ingredient is Nutella, which makes the brownies sweet, tender and moist inside. 

The recipe was adapted from Butter Baking.

Lasagne with Ground Beef

This time I decided to share my favorite lasagne recipe! I love this Italian dish. It might take some time to make it, but it's worth it since you'll have plenty of food for the next days. You can store it in the fridge and simply heat it up in the microwave or oven right before serving. This lasagne recipe was adapted from here. 

Carrot Cake with Crushed Raisins, Walnuts and Pineapple

This cake is a very interesting variation to the traditional carrot cake. It involves crushed pineapple, raisins and walnuts. The delicious frosting is made from cream cheese and vanilla/lemon flavored quark (cottage cheese).  The recipe was adapted from valio.fi.

Choux Patsry Balls With Shrimps

I have another recipe to share that involves choux pastry (pâte à choux). This time it’s profiteroles. However, these profiteroles (or cream puffs) are not meant for dessert since they involve a salty filling. This recipe might appear complicated, but I assure you, it’s not. As you probably realized in the last post (chocolate éclairs), making choux pastry is not complicated at all. And, of course, the filling is not hard to make as well. In fact, it’s so easy I forgot to write down the directions for it at first!

Profiteroles with shrimp filling are perfect for appetizers or a cocktail party (your guests will be impressed). The recipe was adapted from here.