Meatballs in Cream & Mushroom sauce.

Shopping List:

• Quality mince beef  (400-500g)
• Onions (2 medium sized ones)
• Dried forest mushroom (just a handful)
• Red pepper (1 piece)
• Eggs (2 small or 1 large)
• Flour (half glass)
• Cumin (3 teaspoons)
• Garlic (3 cloves)
• Beef cubes (2 pieces)
• Ground black pepper (1 teaspoon)
• Allspice (5 whole seeds)
• Bay leaf (3-4 leafs)
• Dried or fresh dill (3-4 pinches)
• 18% fat cream (half glass)
• Olive oil (3 tablespoons)

The meat is back you guys! Happy times! Tonight we're making beef meatballs in creamy mushroom sauce, which is tasty, fast and doesn't require much of your time. Plenty of serving options here as well. We went for pasta but you might as well use rice, potatoes, mash potato, anything you really feel like eating alongside the juicy, saucy, meatballs.

Here we go than. Time to get dirty with the meet, so wash your hands first ;). Put the beef in a bowl and release the egg from the eggshell in there, add black pepper, cumin and 2 crushed garlic cloves. Mix it all with your hands until it turns into a meaty dough. Add 3 tablespoons of flour and mix it all again. Leave it now covered and let the meat absorb the flavor from all the spices. Chop the onions, pepper and preheat olive oil on the frying pan. Once it's ready start frying the veggies. Take a tall pot, adjust medium heat and put beef cubes and 2 glasses of water in there, dissolve the cubes. In the meantime put the mushroom into a cup with boiling water and let it absorb for 10 minutes. Now take bay leafs, allspice, fried onions with peppers, don't forget the mushroom essence along with the mushroom, throw it, pour it, put it in the pot and cover.

Back to the meat. Put the flour onto a plate and put some on your palms, start forming bite-sized meatballs and coat them in the flour. Prepare all the meatballs (they're supposed to be roughly the same size). The sauce base in the pot should be boiling by now, so you can start putting the meatballs in there. After you're done stir it all and cover for 30-40 minutes. Lower the heat a little, but keep it boiling. Almost there.

Just before serving take half glass of cream and mix it with some sauce from the pot to avoid coagulating, then put the cream into the pot and stir it.

Voila!! It's ready. Ready to serve and ready to eat. Enjoy!

Ps. We are really grateful for all your feedback guys, and appreciate all the suggestions! One of you suggested us a dish with spinach. Coming soon ;)

Caribbean Veggie Soup

Shopping List:

• 2 Large sweet potatoes.
• 2 peppers
• 2 medium onions
• 4 celery sticks
• 3 medium carrots
• 2 cans of chopped tomatoes
• 1 can of coconut milk
• half teaspoon of dries crushed chillies
• 2 teaspoons of salt
• 1 teaspoon of black pepper
• 1 teaspoon of cumin
• 1 teaspoon of turmeric
• 4 bay leaves
• 2 teaspoons of sweet pepper powder
• 2 table spoons of dries parsley
• Half of lemon for squeezing.

No meat today guys, sorry! Today is all about vegetables. I honestly can't believe i just wrote that, because I love meat, however this soup is one of excellent vegetarian dishes brought into our home by Dorota. By the way, another superb winter warmer.

Ok, so after sorting out all the ingredients we take a large pot and heat it up to medium power. Throw half teaspoon of crushed dry chillies into the pot and let them roast. No point of me telling you how long will this take, you will know as the roasted chillies will produce amazing smell, which after a short while will make you cough and sneeze like a monster. There there, it's over. You can open the windows now and release the fumes for the neighbors to enjoy. Puor 2 table spoons of olive oil into the pot and add onions, peppers, celery and carrots. Fry the vegetables until they're soft and shiny. After the veggies are done add the spices, add salt, black pepper, sweet pepper powder, turmeric, cumin and dried parsley. Stir it and let the spices do their job for about 5 minutes. Next thing to do is pour boiled water into the pot until it's half full, than add the bayleaf and chopped sweet potatoes. We stop here for a second, so I could show you what's the way you shall chop them, there is no other way, trust me. 

After you're done they look like this:

Now leave covered until everything is back to boiling. Than add 2 cans of chopped tomatoes and leave until boiling once again. The last stage will be adding coconut milk and 2 table spoons of squeezed lemon juice. Stir it all together and try it. Magic probably already happened but you can still add salt and pepper if you think your soup needs any. Let it hob for the next 20-30 minutes. You have made it again! Well done. Smells good innit? Caribbean Veggie Soup is now ready to serve and looks beautiful as well:

ENJOY!

Beef a'la Stroganov

The first recipe is definately our favorite this winter. A stew-like dish with eastern europe origins is a perfect warmer after a cold day. Very filling with plenty of serving options. But first things first, here's a little shopping list:

• Quality beef (700 grams)
• Polish Pickled peppers (200-300 grams)
• Polish Sour cucumbers (150 grams)
• Green or yellow pepper (1 piece)
• Onions (2 medium sized pieces)
• Mushrooms (400 grams)
• Dried sweet pepper (2 spoons)
• Bayleaf (2-3)
• Beef qubes (2 pieces)
• All-spice (5 seeds)
• Double cream (100ml)
• Tomato purre (60 grams)
• Spicy mustard (40 grams)
• Olive oil
• Salt

 Overall estimate cost: £12-£14

Piece of advice before we start cooking: Make sure you cut everything in the beginning, after that everything else will be a walk in a park. So having all the ingridients cut take a frying pan and heat 4 spoons of olive oil on it and fry beef diced into small qubes. Don't fry the beef too long. 8 minutes should do the trick. Now prepare a large pot, place it on medium heat and empty the frying pan into it, the beef along with olive oil. In the meantime disslove 2 beef qubes in 2 glasses of boiling water and pour them into the pot with the beef. Add tomato purre and mustard, than add all the spices, lower the temperature and cover the pot. Let the sweet beef juice mix with spicy mustard tomato sauce. At this point you'll discover the smell is hypnotizing, hold yourself thou, there is more to come. Take the frying pan again, add 3 spoons of olive oil and stir fry the diced mushroom, whilst frying add 2 tea spoons of salt. Let the mushrooms catch some brown color on the frying pan and dont forget to stir the beef every now and than to prevent it from sticking to the bottom of the pot. Add the fried mushroom to the pot and now start frying onions and green pepper (you should have diced them into feathers or small cubes) on 2 table spoons of olive oil. Once the onion is golden add everything into the pot, stir everything once more let the ingredients exchange the flavor, cover the pot and lower the temperature to minimum. We're almost there, if you made it this far the chance of failing is getting lower- happy times. You can sit back and relax properly as the beef needs to get softer which will take over an hour. Every 20 minutes stir the stew. After one hour of jolly hobing in the pot you might want to check on the meet, if you can easily divide the cube with a spoon or fork we're good to proceed with the last stage. This is the final moment when you add the sliced pickled peppers and diced sour cucumbers to the pot. Once again stir it and cover. 20 minutes after that all you need to do is add double cream to the sauce and turn off the heat. You have made it. This dish is now ready to serve!

As said in the beggining there is plenty of serving options. You can use rice, potatoes, mash potatoes, bread. The three of us we used steamed buns, but at this point anything from the list above will do.

ENJOY!