originals: Spanish fondue carbonara or whatever

When I was a kid, because that's how I now see myself when I was in my early 20s - as a kid, the connection between my mood and cooking was much simpler. When I was happy and satisfied, I made tons of crepes, when I was sad and frustrated I baked bread everyday. I'd spend hours in silence, crying and kneading, before I was finally diagnosed with severe depression. In the meantime cooking became more of a source of joy than just a way to cope with stress. I started cooking for others. I started cooking for men, finding yet another way to pleasure them. In the last years I understood to full extent what it means to put love into what you cook. I grew, I bloomed, as a person and as a chef.

Now I hit a wall. With no-one to cook for and no strength to get up from bed I lost 20 lbs, because I simply can't be bothered. There's this expression in Polish, loosely translated to "to eat through one's reason," or something - that's what I do now. I explain to myself that I need to eat. Cooking is mostly out of the question. That makes days like today special.

I'm still browsing through recipes, a lot, and bookmarking, a lot. Mark Bittman's Cacio e Pepe spent some time among my saved links and today it seemed like a good thing to try. Simple enough, comfort-foody enough. I forced myself to go shopping in the cold (-14 degrees), dragged myself back to the apartment and, I don't know, something just happened. That small, barely noticeable magic, when you look at the ingredients around you and just allow yourself to be silly and have fun.

In my fridge, there was an open bottle of my favourite white, vino turbio (cloudy wine), that I just brought back from Spain. Why use water, when you can use fresh, tangy, slightly yeasty wine? The cheese and the wine mixed together immediately reminded me of fondue, and I simply can't have fondue without a ton of nutmeg. So there it went. Freshly ground pepper, freshly grated nutmeg, a touch of cayenne for that extra kick, not that it needed one. Bittman wrote to use good olive oil, and there it was, on the table, a 5l bottle of the most amazing Spanish olive oil so delicious, I could drink it just like that, from a glass. I couldn't wait for the pasta to finish cooking, I checked it every five seconds. I started thinking of something more to add to the sauce to stop doing that. Egg-yolk, why, yes, please. As far as I'm concerned egg-yolks should go into everything.

Believe me, the result was stunning.

"We're completely different in the way that we cook. She's always looking for new recipes and trying them out, I just go through the fridge and the pantry, see what we have and try to figure out what to make from it." That's what he often said about us. Now he's gone. So I guess I have to do both.

comfort food: kołduny

Sometimes you realize you did stuff wrong, that choices that were supposed to make your life better have all just gone to shit, you may never have the chance to do what you love and you can't even post anything to your blog more often than once in a month. At times like this, you need comfort food. For me, comfort food is not just about how it makes you feel when you eat it. The whole cooking process can be comforting too. That's why for me kołduny are the best comfort food known to mankind.

It may seem like I'm going sentimental, but I have to mention there's also some family tradition when it comes to this dish. First with my grandma and my aunts, then just with my Mom, we used to spend a whole day on this. We'd sit all together, make the first batch, trying to make the kołduny as small as possible and bragging about our skills, then we'd cook the first batch, eat it, suffer from overeating and start the next batch. Repeat until the filling is gone. There's something about forming the tiny dumplings that makes it a lot like occupational therapy.

The most amazing and important thing about the kołduny is the filling. Like in the Ukrainian pelmeni, you use raw meat filling. In this case it's lamb - the ultimate base of comfort food - not only extremely delicious, but also rich in things that actually improve your mood and make you healthier.

filling:
• 500g ground lamb
• marjoram
• salt
• pepper

The filling is quite simple, but you have to rely on your own taste here. I'd advice to use at least half glass of marjoram. You just have to taste it until it's good - add some of the spices, mix with a fork or with your hand, taste, repeat until you're satisfied. Try not to eat everything at once.

After you're done with the filling, cover it and put it in the refridgerator. Then make the dough, you'll find the recipe here. Let it rest a while in the frige too, and then cut out a small bit and roll it out thinly - the thinner the better, as it can't overwhelm the filling, it's just there to catch the fluids.

Now comes the occupational therapy part. You'll need a shot glass and an espresso spoon. Cut out circles of dough with the hot glass, put in the filling with an espresso spoon. Then fold it in half, close it squeezing the exces dough together with your fingers and, for decorative purposes, add "waves" by pinching it together along the side a few times, as close as you can.

When you're done with the first batch, boil some salted water in a short, but wide, pot. When it's boiling, throw the kołduny in and boil them until they float to the top, then just a minute more. Now, this is VERY IMPORTANT. DON'T DISCARD THE WATER. It turns into a perfect broth - serve the kołduny in it. Keep the rest of the broth and cook the next batches in it - it will be ever more flavourfull. Of course you can add some water every next time.

If you don't think you can eat all of them at once, you can freeze them before boiling. They'll be just fine.

seasonal: chanterelle and goat cheese trottelloni

When it comes to seasonal food, chanterelles for me are the most elusive. You can import fresh asparagus from Peru and pay a shitload of money, you can grow tomatoes all year long in glasshouses (and complain about their lack of flavour), but you can only get fresh chanterelles for these few weeks a year.

I have a few good recipes for stuff more elaborate than scrambled eggs with chanterelles (although that's actually good enough for me) and perhaps I'll manage to share them with you before the season is over, this is one of them. When it comes to chanterelles, simplicity is key, less is more - you wouldn't want to kill their flavour with too many ingredients. So, here we go.

pasta dough (I know this is not the classic italian recipe, it's more of a Polish dumpling dough recipe - you can use your favourite, I just got used to this one):

• 2 cups of flour (the thinner the better)
• salt
• 1 large free-range egg (if you don't have those - buy some and stop buying other ones right this instant)
• a cup of water (you may not use all of it, remember)

Sieve the flour to a large bowl, add salt and the egg - knead. Gradually add small amounts of water and knead further, until the dough is smooth, without any dry lumps. If you added too much water and the dough it too sticky, add some flour and knead again. Put the dough in a plastic bag and in the refrigerator - believe me, it improves the doughs quality when it comes to the next steps.

filling:

• cleaned chanterelles
• shallots
• butter
• soft goat cheese
• salt and freshly ground pepper

Sorry for not giving you exact measurements, but there's just no way to do this, you have to go with your gut here. But, let's say for a medium bowl of chanterelles (while they're still in one piece) I'd take 2-3 challots and ca. 100g goat cheese.

Chop the chanterelles and the shallots rather finely. Melt some butter on a pan, according to your preference - I always use a lot of butter, but I understand people who don't. When the butter melts fry the challots on medium heat until they're translucent, salt them and add the chopped chanterelles - fry them for a little while, until they're a bit softer. Turn off the heat and add the goat cheese. Season with salt and pepper, stirr until it all combines and put it aside into a bowl to let it cool down. Cold filling, especially butter-based, is much easier to use than warm one.

Now, off to occupational therapy. It's good to have someone to help you and/or a few episodes of something good to watch. This will take you some time.

Cut away a fist sized piece of dough, leave the rest in the fridge. Sprinkle the table with flour, rub some on your rolling pin and roll out the dough as thinly as you can. Thick dough overwhelms the filling and throws off the texture balance of the dish. Using something like a espresso cup or larger vodka glass or similar in diameter (I'd say about 4-5cm?) cut out circles of dough. Prepare some cloths and a tray spirinkled with flour to put the ready dumplings on. Now, to the folding.

I called this shape trottelloni (from German Trottel - fool, that's my sense of humour right there), because first of all, it's so easy a fool can do it and, most of all, I couldn't find a proper Italian name for it - went through all the possible shapes of stuffed pasta and didn't find it. If you know a proper name - please share.

So, it goes like this - with an espresso spoon, put some filling in the middle of the circle, fold it in half and press the edges together. Then take the corners and, bending the dumpling, press them together too, just as you can see on the picture with my messily-manicured fingers. Repeat until you run out of dough and filling.

If you run of dough first, you can either make more, or freeze the remaining filling for later. If you run out of filling, roll out the remaining dough, sprinkle generously with flour and leave to dry. When dried, roll it into, well, a roll and slice thinly - you now have some homemade pasta you can store for later.

Back to the trottelloni. Get some salted water boiling, throw the trottelloni in and boil until they all float to the top and a few moments more. Serve with sage-butter. Enjoy.

If you made more than you can eat, you can easily freeze them (before cooking, clearly) - first on the tray you used to put them aside, and when they're already frozen you can put them in a freezing bag - they shouldn't stick together anymore.

cheap, easy and fast - a whore of a dish

This is the cheapest and fastest meal that I know and, in my opinion, it tastes great, especially if you love pasta and spring onions like I do.

All you need is some pasta (preferably spaghetti, and don't try to save a few cents by buying the cheapest one, it's not worth it), cottage cheese, chives and one egg. If you don't have the time to spare or you just don't want to eat white carbs or whatever, just substitute the pasta with another egg.

Cook the pasta and chop the spring onions in the meantime, throw the pasta on a heated frying pan, quickly add the rest, season with salt and pepper, stir until the egg is ready and there, it's ready.

We call this type of dish in Poland "student food", so if you're not in a hurry go on and drink a not-too-expensive beer with it, like I did today.

I realized I didn't address this issue earlier - the eggs. I only use eggs from free range chickens. I don't want to sound holier-than-thou or anything, but this day and age you really voice your opinions through money and money only. By buying eggs from caged chickens you show your support to this stupid cruelty, but if you pay some more for free range eggs, you show the people to make the effort to produce them in a humane way, that it's the right way to go. And, believe me, those eggs taste much, much better.