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.

originals: sweet potato, white bean and kale (tacos)

There's only one way to say this: until a couple of days ago, I was a kale virgin. I actually bought it a few times with full intent of using it, but every time I chickened out and I let it rot in my fridge. Believe me - rotten kale is NOT something you want to smell, ever. But as I'm finally realising my dream of cooking for a living (well, for drinks at least) and posing as a pro, I can't run away from it any longer. And so, looking for a vegan option for our tacos (at Ricos Tacos), I created my first recipe using kale!

Prep is key here, once you have everything sliced, diced and drained it's the simplest thing to cook EVER. And the ingredients, in order of appearance, are:

• canola oil
• 1 red onion - diced
• 1 garlic clove - minced
• 1 jalapeno - chopped finely*
• 1 large sweet potato (at least palm sized) - diced
• 1 can of small white beans - drained
• 1 packed glass of kale - chopped
• salt

Now this is really simple: heat oil in a wok, toss in the aromatics, cook on small heat until the onion becomes translucent, toss in the sweet potato, stir well until it's all covered in the oil and increase heat to high, cook for a couple of minutes, add the beans, stir until warm, salt, taste, salt again, add kale, stir until it gets a pretty vivid green colour, serve.

Now, we at Ricos Tacos serve it on warmed corn tortillas with cilantro, slices of avocado, pomegranate seeds and a quarter of lime, but you can serve it any way you want. E.g. on quinoa, if you feel sweet potato and kale aren't hipster enough for you.

*adjust to your own heat preferences, use more or seed the one you're using, but DO NOT leave it out unless you want to end up with a bland dish

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.

Köttbullar - IKEA meatballs

I've spent a lot of time trying to find THE recipe for THE swedish meatballs from IKEA. I finally found it somewhere deep in the forgotten corners of IKEA servers, in Norwegian. For those of you, who don't speak Norwegian: learn it ASAP, it's a great language. For those of you, who don't speak Norwegian and are not willing to learn - you're lucky I'm able to translate this recipe for you. Here it is.
Swedish meatballs
Real Swedish meatballs should be small and served with mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce.

• 500 g highest quality ground meat
• 4 tbs breadcrumbs
• 2 ts (full) grainy or French mustard
• 150 ml milk
• 1/2 finely chopped onion
• salt and pepper

Mix the breadcrumbs and milk and set them aside for 5 minutes. Mix all the ingredients together and form small balls. Fry them on butter or sunflower oil for about 8-10 minutes, depending on their size.

seasonal - grill, simple lamb, asparagus

I've been experiencing some lags recently, so please excuse me for posting about asparagus way beyond season (well, at least in Europe). But, hey, the grilling season is still on, so perhaps at least the lamb recipe will be useful.

Both the green asparagus and lamb chops are extremely easy and fast to prepare, but at the same time - they're really impressive. All you need to do with the asparagus, once you cleaned them (which, in Europe, doesn't only mean trimming the lower ends - you should really peel them unless you're lucky enough to find 50 cm long asparagus you can afford to cut 15 cm off) is to sprinkle them with sea salt, freshly ground pepper and olive oil - they're ready to grill.

Now - with the lamb there are two ways to do this. An uncertain, easy one, and a delicious one you have to put some more effort into. You can either buy ready made pesto genovese for this, or make it yourself. Unless you have a brand you're sure of and very little time, I recommend making it yourself. I actually dislike pine nuts, so I substitute them with walnuts. With added garlic it's not really pesto genovese anymore, but, hell, it's god. I use a blender - this way it's easier to get a more even, flavourful sauce.

So, for the semi-pesto I throw a big bunch of fresh basil leaves, a handful of parmigiano, a couple pressed big garlic cloves (I usually add more, but I love garlic, not everybody does) and a handful of walnuts. I season it after blending - the parmiggiano is salty, so it's easy to overdo it with the salt before tasting.

TIP: To make the walnuts blend better with the other ingredients I use a garlic presser - no more large bits!

Back to the grilling - take the lamb chops (any lamb chops) and generously rub them with the pesto. Place them on the grill together with the asparagus. If the chops are small and thin, I recommend putting the asparagus on earlier, as they may take longer to cook. As for the times - don't require exact times for me - this all depends on the grill, the temperature you achieved, the size of the chops and most of all - on your preferences. I like it rare or at least medium-rare.

As you can see on the picture, I didn't use a regular grill/barbecue - I tried out the Lotus Grill thingy and I'm quite pleased with it. If you're doing it right, that is, read the manual and use all the things you need to use, including the lighting gel (unlike we did the first time round), it's really great. It heats up almost immediately, it's clean, doesn't take much space, you can use it on your balcony without annoying the people next door or above you. Also, if you're a design and gadget freak like me, it's simply pretty cool. We have the smaller one, but it also comes in bigger sizes for bigger parties. Check it out here: http://www.lotusgrill.pl/en/