Salmon thyme pastry, easiest recipe on earth

I am so afraid of new failures of pastry experiences that I almost always prefer to buy the ready made frozen bourekas. From time to time, I have the chutzpe to try something on my own, but only to have the confirmation that the bourekas from the shop are always the best. Till today, when too busy with the Rosh Hashana menu I forgot the previous lack of success and simply proceeded to the preparation of some salmon pastry. The investment made was minimal: the thyme, 350 gr. natural salmon and some ready made dough. I cut the dough into medium sized squares, and added the salmon with the thyme in the middle.

I packed the four corners of the square and made a kind of kreplach-like size: small squares with the salmon in the middle carefully protected by the dough.

With the oven heated at 250C, the salmon pastry went ready very fast, in almost 20 minutes. A bit burned on the sides, but looking and smelling too good to be made in my own kitchen. Can't wait to taste the result, in only a couple of hours. 

Apparently, it seems that I start the New Year at least with a clear objective: baking and cooking at home as often as possible. It's time to try even more new recipes, forgetting about all the previous failures. Maybe this perspective matches other life achievements too...

Simple honey cake for Rosh Hashana

I like my honey cake as simple as possible, so from a year to another, the recipe is changing insignificantly. I like to keep the same taste, maybe with more cinnamon or some other spices added. This time, I kept the all ingredients, maybe with less honey and sugar compared to the previous years.

My main ingredients were:

- 3 big eggs

- 1 cup honey

- 3 cup flour 

- 1 cup brown sugar

- 1 cup Nesscafe dissolved in water

- 200 gr. veggie margarine melted

- 1 tablespoon cinnamon

- 1 tablespoon baking powder

I first added the baking powder to the flour, then added the eggs, the honey, the sugar, the cinnamon and the margarine and the coffee. Mixed well till everything is melted. 

The preparation takes around 15 minutes.

The baking lasts around 40 minutes, at 200C.

Rosh Hashana menu in the making: Muffin carrot recipe

Guess who is, again and again, late with the preparation of the Rosh Hashana menu? Yes, you guessed right, it's me. But, trying to keep up with the various pans and measures, I am also doing my best to take notes and take pictures and when one delicious meal is in the oven, to update the blog, one post at a time.

The muffin carrot recipe has a lot of qualities, besides being easy to make - preparation time 15 minutes, cooking, around 20 minutes at 200C - it also combines a lot of flavours, like cinnamon, carrot and sweet maple syrup (I used the Lyle's Golden Syrup).

The ingredients are the following:

- 200 gr. floor

- 150 gr. brown sugar

- 2 big carrots finely grated

- 2 big eggs

- 50 gr. cooking oil

- 100 gr. Lyle's Golden Syrup

- 1 tablespoon cinnamon

- 1 tablespoon baking powder

- 100 gr. veggie margarine, melted

Mix well the carrots with floor, eggs and baking powder. Add the oil, cinnamon, sugar and veggie margarine. Mix till all the ingredients are heterogeneous.

Pour the composition in the muffin-form and get ready for a moderately sweet treat.
It serves 12.

Get ready, more to come in the next 24 hours! 

A litle bit of DIY: Peacock feathers from Tiger

When I am looking for that little thing that will make my life a bit colourful, but without a bigger investment, I am heading to my local Tiger shop. If you are a well experienced hobby lover, you would rather look for something more complicated, but in my case, I am always out of time, with resources directed towards other objectives - such as travel - so I rather would try something minimal. During the intensive shopping preparations for the beginning of the school, I decided to offer myself as well a little funny present. 

I am a very big lover of peacock feather for their delicacy and beauty and combination of colours. No wonder that I left the shop with those little pieces, that suit very well both my cell phone and my small camera. You can place them in different positions, together or separately.

They are relatively good quality, resistant - although the eye of one of the feathers went away a couple of days after I applied it, but for the rest of it, is getting well, even one month after. It looks discreet, a little sparkle of beauty on the simplest daily tools. 

Back to school with the red bus

It's that time of the year, when the holidays are over and we should readjust the time to the schedule of the schools. First year or the tenth, the excitement is the same. As a kid, one of my favourite time was the one dedicated to shopping various items - not necessarily handbooks - needed for the school. At the time, I did not have too many financial possibilities, but I kept buying many of those fancy office supports later one. 

Now, I am trying to find new suppliers every year. This time, my favourite was Tiger, a fancy yet affordable Danish store. For the school year, I bought a bus pen holder, which looks irresistible funny.

It is made of plastified hard paper, painted in red with various colourful images, set up as a school bus. It was available only in the red colour. It has longer and smaller shelves, enough to hold some pens, pencils, pins and who knows what other secret items the children are using today. It does not occupy too much space and it looks resistant enough to stay alive at least till the end of the year. 

Learning can be always more pleasant when you are surrounded by beautiful decorations! Girl or boy, we all need colourful incentives!

Have a great 'back-to-school' time everyone!