Personal Thursday #8 and #9 - Cooking time

During those two Thursdays I did not create anything personal (though created lots of commercial stuff) - I did however cook a bit. Have I ever mentioned that I really enjoy cooking? :)
I don't really like to make basic food and all those Polish dishes that we eat on and on, in every home, every week, always the same - kurczak, schabowe, mielone, pierogi (oh I love them), kopytka, rosół, pomidorowa, ogórkowa and all the rest. I like cooking things that are weird or that take a lot of time to do, things that you don't really have time to do during the week. Or sweets. Oh, those sweets I could bake them everyday :D

So during Thursday #8 I made (together with my Love - it's his hobby too) those delicious stuffed shells.



Gosh, they were amazing. They took about... I don't know.. 2 years (?!) to make but it was totally worth it.

We've changed the recipe a bit because on that day there was a national holiday and all shops were closed. So for the stuffing we've used not only ricotta but a mix of ricotta, Camembert and standard cheese.

So if you have a whole day to spare - I recommend! My family was delighted :)

During Thursday #9 I was getting ready for my littlest sister's birthday party - spooky themed (she was born on 31st September). She has found somewhere on the web an idea for muffins changed into graves. They were quite fun to do :D

But since we were not supposed to eat them and I was in a really big need to eat sweets I also made those cute cupcakes.

They were sugar flavoured with sugar icing - exactly what I needed :)

I think I could share here some of other interesting recipes I've tried and recommend, why not? :)

A.

Christmas baby angels

This Christmas my family was a host, what happens quite rarely. I liked it a lot, it was so much more peaceful but it also didn't feel like true Christmas. I'm just used to going to Pulawy city where all my family was born and where the rest of our relatives live.

My mum was quite excited with all that Christmas preparations and she got crazy decorating house. For example, I with my youngest sister have to make napkin holders. I never thought that just laying the napkins next to plates is so yesterday ;)

Here are the holders:

We had to sew together those angels and straps (in shape of Christmas trees, of course!). It was my sister's first time of using needle so the first angel she made was a bit bloody ;P

And here are some more photos, my family really wanted to see those ^^ And you will also see a bit of my life.

 Those are my two sisters - Kate (bigger one) and Zuzia (smaller one). They both are younger :)

 Here are my grandparents (from mum's side of family). In the background you can see a fish tank on which my cat usually sleeps.

This is my dad and a fish plate I won last year through Design Files. My dad loves to eat fish so he decided to make a very fancy version of a pike perch with apples, cranberries and I-have-no-idea-what-more. It was yummy!

Mmmm... :3

I hope that we will be hosting Easter breakfast too!

A.

Girls

There are 4 girls, except me, working in our coffee shop. We spend quite a lot of time together while working almost every single day, so it was quite obvious that I should give them something pretty this Christmas. And here's what it was :) (I can show you already because they haven't waited and unwrapped their presents as soon as they got home yesterday...)

 Monika

  Justyna

 Agnieszka

Marlena

And here are some photos from our Christmas Eve meeting yesterday :) It was fun!

 My muffins, they were great :)

 Pierogi.... Do you have pierogi out there in your country to eat? If not, you must be really unhappy ;)

Those drinks were delicious *__*

All the pictures were in white frames like this - I have totally forgotten to take photos of them all together so this is the only thing I have now. Picture taken by the new owner, Justyna :)

Merry Christmas to you!

A.

From my cell phone

 So don't be shocked with the quality ;) My cell phone's camera is no killer, really.

 A big sketch of a contest work. You can see it finished here.

 Few copies of my book. Well, book with my illustrations - I'm pretty lame at writing rhymes so there's no way of me creating poems for kids ;)

 A cat from my neighbourhood that I visit as often as possible. I call her Grahamka but her owner calls her Pela. She was pregnant when I was taking this photo. Now there is a little version of her running around the yard.

 Panda T-shirt - shame it was so shapeless, otherwise I would totally buy it :) A tee with Bubbles you can see on the right was not right too :(

 My cat in a white boot ;P She got bitten just a while before by some bug but she didn't seem to care and was chasing them all the time.

 Eating birthday cake at work. I've baked it :)

 And this is my cake, also at work, which I got from the girls :)

 Me and my friend Aria on my sister's reception party.

 One of the gifts my sister and her husband (this word sounds weird) got for a weeding. A BIG piggy bank :)

 Dog named Brudas living (from time to time) with my aunt and uncle. He's silly and incredibly big.

 My newest book :) Will share more photos of it soon!

 That's how people looked through windows to see what I was painting on pizza restaurant's walls. It was stupid and they've got me really distracted.

 Now my cell phone's memory is clear and I have space to take more photos!

A.

After weekend

I had a really bad humour this weekend. More - I've spend one day crying constantly without any particular reason. But probably I just need to cry from time to time to wash off all those bad emotions and thoughts and it sounds really well since I feel like a brand new me now :)

I've made two next recipes while being at home but, gosh, I've forgotten to take pictures of the sweets from the cookbook. I have photos of my versions of them but it's better to see the comparison, isn't it? So you'll have to wait for that.

However, I have an In Progress picture to show you - a commissioned picture which I will finish this week (I took it with me to the hotel because only weekend-long-work is not enough). The background is probably done, I will only add some finishing touches at the very end.

I took this photo at night so you just have to imagine that the sky is rather blue than this dirty violet-grey.

A.

First attempt

I got my first cooking attempt this weekend. I bought my first ever cookbook full of chocolate-connected recipes recently and I chose something quite easy for the start - chocolate éclairs.

The process of making them was rather easy but, because I've started too late, I had to do it in two goes. And I think I somehow fucked up the filling ;] I don't really know what I did wrong but it had a different texture than the one you can see on the picture above. However, my family of sweet-devourers ate everything to the last bit and they liked it a lot :P I will try to make them one more time soon and maybe then the filling will come out just as it should.

Next weekend I will try something with raspberries. Two recipes that look interesting are named 'A Raspberry Craziness' and 'A Tower of Crunchy Cookies', so maybe there will be two tries next week, who knows? :)

A.