Mulled beer

There is so much going on right now, but on the other hand nothing really changed.
It is somewhere between autumn and winter, days are shorter, but the Christmas lights are on.
It's dark and cold so I started to have more excuses to stay at home and eat something nice and comforting instead of going out. However after a few weekends in I started to miss the sky, sea, fresh air and sunlight. This morning it was bright and crisp, really good weather for a walk.

On Tuesday I joined "From spoon to screen: the whys and hows of food blogging" meeting. I must admit I missed bloggers' meetings. There is always this vibrant buzz around them and you want to run and cook and blog more and better, until you get home and you are tired and you get stuck watching Masterchef Australia and eating whatever was in a fridge. 

Keep an eye on The National Librarie's website as this event was part of a series ‘The Kitchen Archive’ that focuses on how recipes and culinary skills have been communicated through the centuries in Ireland, so there are more interesting events to come.

But the more I think about the blogging less I know. Do I know what my voice is? Who are my readers? What I really want to say? I don't know the answer to those question. I know that I enjoy writing and talking photos. I love blogging because I get to know fantastic people, because I cook better food. 

Thanks to Simone and the photography and styling challenge she organise I finally decided to post a recipe for my favourite hot alcohol drink for winter.
I really don't understand why mulled beer isn't as popular as mulled wine. I love mulled beer and I also treat it as kind of medicine. You see whenever I feel like I'm getting a cold I fix myself a mulled beer. It is hot and spicy, so it will warm you up, it has honey and we all know that honey is good for you and it's much better than an onion syrup my mum used to make me drink. And remember you can drink it even when you are totally healthy.

Mulled beer

Notes:
For the purposes of this post I measured the amounts of ingredients, usually I just mix in a few my favourite ground spices - cinnamon, ginger and cardamon and some honey. The goal is to get drink that is sweet and spicy. 

Other version you may try: 

Add raspberry syrup instead of honey. 

My boyfriend likes adding a slice of orange before drinking, however it's definitely not my cup of tea.  

• 2 lager beers
• 2 1/2 Tbsp honey
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 5 whole cloves
• 1-cm long piece fresh ginger, sliced
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 whole star anise
• 1/2 tsp ground cardamon
• pinch nutmeg

Put the beer into a saucepan with the spices and honey and heat slowly, don't boil it. 

Taste and add spices and honey to your liking. Poor through a sieve into thick glasses. Enjoy :)

Polish lazy dumplings

Comfort food means something different for everybody. Once Ania from the blog Strawberries from Poland wrote that for her comfort food would be soft, melting dishes. It's something that you would eat when you are sick, that brings childhood memories. I need to agree with Ania. And by the way if you have a moment visit her blog, Ania makes beautiful simple photos and the same kind of food, I love her style and personality, it's so simple but still strong.
So when I think about comfort food I think about lazy dumplings or simple mash potatoes.
I told you that as a child I could live eating only bread and potatoes (and some butter with them).
Poland is great place to live is you love potatoes. There are so many different types of Polish kluski (dumplings): pierogi, pierogi leniwe (lazy pierogi), kluski śląskie, kopytka, pyzy ziemniaczane, knedle, cepeliny, kartacze, etc. These are only types, we are not even talking about stuffings. Most of them use flour, eggs and potatoes.
This dish is called kopytka (lit. small hoofs) in my family, however at Tomek's they would call it pierogi leniwe (lazy pierogi) and kopytka would be reserved for dumplings with no cheese in them.

My grandma always made them. They are simple, you just mix boiled potatoes, twarog (quark cheese or ricotta), eggs, salt, pepper and enough flour to be able to shape it, then you just put it into boiling water until they flow out. 

There are at least two options to shape it, either nice hand-cut size like the ones you can see on the photo or lazy version. My grandma would take a spoon of dough and throw it into water with no shaping process. I was really easy to please child so of course I preferred the lazy one as it was much softer and I would get these small crumbs. 

I would always eat a savory version with melted butter and toasted dry breadcrumbs, but you can eat it with mushroom sauce or ragu. 

You can make the sweet version by adding some vanilla sugar into the dough and then you can eat it with cream, sugar and cinnamon. 

If you have a picky child you may want to try serving this dish, as it's children friendly.

Polish lazy dumplings (Kopytka with cheese / Pierogi leniwe / Kluski leniwe)
Based on recipe from White plate blog

• 200 g cquark cheese or ricotta (Polish: twarog)
• 300 g potatoes, boiled and mashed
• 1-2 eggs
• salt
• 5 Tbsp flour (the amount will depend on the dough stickiness)
• melted butter and toasted dried breadcrumbs to serve

Mash cheese and potatoes together. Add eggs, salt and a few tablespoons of flour. Mix it together.

You should get dough that doesn't stick to your hands, but it is still soft. 

Shape it into logs, flatten it with your hand and cut into stripes. Mine were approx. 1x5cm. 

Boil water with a pinch of salt in a pot. 

Add dumplings and cook them around 2-3 minutes until they float to the top.
Remove them with a slotted spoon. 

Place on a plate and sprinkle with toasted breadcrumbs and pour over with melted butter.

Healthy kale crisps

Why nobody told me about kale crisps before? Seriously.
I always struggle with eating veggies and my boyfriend doesn't help as he rather asks questions like "do you want crisp/chocolate/cookie?" rather than "do you want healthy salad?".
I'm new to kale, somehow in Poland I've never encountered kale, well my Polish cookbook mention it, but we have never meet before.
The first remembered meeting was at Joy the Baker blog, I read Joy's blog for all the sweet, full of butter and sugar stories and girly stuff, but sometimes Joy gives you important life lessons, one of them was to try to balance your butter and sugar love with kale smoothies. Since than I was searching for kale. I bought it a few times and needed to explain myself to my boyfriend - why I bought this huge bag of green leaves.
I tried to make a smoothie, but it didn't work, my blender gave up and the smoothie was kind of chewy, you don't want to have chewy smoothies. I will stay with spinach smoothies.
I found the recipe for crispy parmesan and chilli kale crisps (or chips, up to you) in autumn Donna Hay Magazine. Actually there is whole section on kale and all recipes seems to be delicious (only tried 2 of them so far). So after keeping my kale for a few days in the fridge I decided to make these crisps and they are so delicious and easy to make and healthy and spicy and you can mix in any spices you want.

Healthy kale crisps 

Recipe comes from Donna Hay Magazine (issue 63)

• 300 g kale, stems removed and roughly torn
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 tsp dried chilli flakes
• 1/2 cup (40 g) finely grated parmesan, plus extra to serve (I used delicious Canarian cheese)
• sea salt and cracked black pepper

Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan.
In a large bowl mix together kale, olive oil, chilli flakes, parmesan, salt and pepper. Mix well to combine.
Place on a large baking pan and bake for 8-12 minutes or until crispy, you may do it in two batches.
Allow to cool and sprinkle with extra parmesan to serve.
Enjoy :)