Smoked salmon roulade...

There's really not a lot of fish out there or seafood in general that I don't like, but I was never so kean on smoked salmon. when I used to live in Poland it was quite tricky to get a good quality one, one that's really smoked and not just covered in something that's imitating real smoking process. That has changed when I moved to Ireland. Living on an island now, literally few miles from the Ocean I have one of the best fish and the freshest one, here at my doorstep. Smoked salmon - as this is the star of my post today. I really start loving the stuff and enjoy it on many ways. One of my Baby J (who's 4 years old now) favorite way of eating smoked salmon is simply on buttered toast, just like that. I usually put mine on a toast covered already in some scrambled eggs. But I was challenged to think of some new, interesting but easy at the same time, way of eating smoked salmon.

This is a recipe I created specially for Quinlan's Kerryfish using their organic smoked salmon. It IS good! When thinking what will I make I didn't want to over complicate it, nor I wanted to "kill" the taste of the fish with another strong ingredient. Seeing as my favorite way of eating smoked salmon is with eggs, here's a result - smoked salmon roulade made using a kind of egg pancake, but to put some creaminess inside, and a little bit of a "kick" and different texture - you'll find cream cheese and a small "kick", as well as some crunch from the gherkins.

How to make it...

Polish grey dumplings...

Those dumplings are very popular in Greater Poland. Quick, budget friendly dish, that literally anyone can make. Traditional way of serving them will be with some pork scratching and caramelized onion. Some recipes call for eggs, like the one below, but some won’t be using any at all, just raw potatoes, flour and a bit of salt. Both versions are delicious, very quick and simple to make. Also very easy on your wallet! Yes, I am aware that in different parts of Poland there are "grey dumpling" which are completely different than those below, even though they also use raw potatoes, but as with almost each and every dish in my native country - every part of Poland (sometimes even every family) has it's own way of preparing it and naming it too.
I know they might not be the prettiest, but they have very unusual taste, are easy to make and what's the most important - are delicious. I actually like that uneven, funky shape of those dumplings, the fact that each and every dumpling is different! Aren't we all..? ;)

How to make it...

Marbled cupcakes...

Another cupcake creation and another one based on The Hummingbird Bakery cookbook. I wrote million times already how much I love making and eating cupcakes, but to sum up again - quick and relatively easy to make, versatile and it somehow makes me less guilty if I eat a cupcake rather than a thick slice of cake, but I might be little delusional here... ;)
The below method of making cupcakes was little bit different than how I'm used to preparing the batter, but it gave fantastic result of fluffy, light and spongy texture. The marbled effect looked really nice, I'm just regretting of not "swirling" my batter enough to make it even more "marbley". As I;m not a big fan of creamy/buttery frosting, I omitted that part in the recipe ( I also changed slightly how I made my two different batches of flavored sponges) and decided to decorate mine with a little bit of icing sugar "dust", but I don't think that you need any kind of decoration on top of those little beauties - especially if you'll be more daring with swirling than I was! :)

How to make it...