Recently on a blog, somebody asked a question about ways of dealing with autumn depression. For me, sometimes, the best way is to challenge yourself in the kitchen. Firstly I look for inspiration online or on paper. In the end I usually have to spend longer cleaning up after these inspirations than I spent cooking them, but what wouldn't you do to lift the mood? First I take stock of the fridge and larder, do some quick shopping and... mess in the kitchen. From this mess emerges something yummy and it is this moment I like the most.

On my last shopping trip, I spotted some extremely big and nice mushrooms. They were almost asking to be grilled or baked with delicious fillings. After a moment of contemplation, onion, gorgonzola cheese, walnuts and dried tomatoes appeared on the table. Just a mess in the kitchen and the dinner is ready.

Ingredients:

5 big mushrooms

150g of gorgonzola cheese

½ an onion

2 cloves of garlic

4 dried tomatoes in olive oil

6 walnuts

small chili pepper

2 tablespoons of butter

1 big fistful of minced parsley

salt and pepper

Autumn ripe pears tempt us with their shape, colour and smell. I like most of all yellow ones with ruddy cheeks. Pears, which came to Europe from ancient Persia, were an exclusive product to begin with. Native strains were grown only at the turn of the XVII and XVIII centuries.

The pear is called the fruit of love and is numbered among fruit aphrodisiacs. They go well with chocolate, nuts and vanilla.

For a romantic evening I made a very simple but grand pear-chocolate desert. You need an appropriate amount of pears for your casserole dish. You can bake every pear separately or put all of them into a bigger dish and bake them all together. The cake which I recommend today is light, fluffy and doesn't contain flour.

Ingredients:

2 pears

2 eggs

80g of caster sugar

3 tablespoons of cocoa

1 teaspoon of baking powder

Summer is a mental state, not only a season. With this slogan we were welcomed by an extremely outgoing and pleasant barmaid in a cocktail bar on Krucza Street 16/22. Though it is a typical place for drinks, the presence of children doesn't marvel anyone. Cocktail Bar Max promises fruity dizziness. Close your eyes, imagine exotic fruit, what does it look like? How does it taste? And now ... try it!.

Our order was short: non-alcoholic drinks, colorful and intensely fruity. After a moment the master of fruits brought before us four huge glasses. On the edge of them were big pieces of watermelon and this was only the beginning. The many fruits were presented as fabulous fully edible decorations. When it seemed that nothing more would fit on the glass, the barmaid added another layer of fruit. I didn't know their names and I ate maybe three of them. Some of the fruits were sweet, the others so sour that I was not able to swallow them. One of them was less decorative, whereas the others looked like exotic birds of paradise: starfruit, grapes, rambutan, watermelon, pitaja (sometimes called 'dragon fruit' or 'strawberry pear'), kumquat, cherimoya (aka pudding apple) are just some of them.

Then each of us got a different cocktail. Depending on whether we preferred more or less sweet, yellow, orange or red, the barmaid skillfully created a combo in a mixer choosing from countless frozen food storages and fridges: mangos, pineapples, persimmons, papayas, passion fruits, pomegranates and watermelon, but also our domestic fruits: strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries.

Some time ago I often did my shopping at one of the hypermarkets which offers online sales. I was glad of this. I did the shopping at a time that was convenient for me, I decided on my own date of delivery, and the neatly packed products were delivered right next to my fridge. I could pay any way I liked: by wire transfer, by cash or by card. It saves time and is comfortable, especially if for some reason you don't want to, or you can't, go out.

You can describe your demands regarding products by leaving comments. If there are any unavailable products or if the products don't satisfy you, the staff of the hypermarket discuss the changes by telephone. Unfortunately, like in every place where people work, mistakes can happen. In the 13 years in which I did online shopping, there were literally only a couple of mistakes and they were not very serious.

Thanks to one such mistake, instead of a small tin of Indian corn I got a huge one. The amount of Indian corn was so large I could have prepared a salad for a garrison. For my family it was too much to eat in one meal. I used some of it for salads and the rest remained in my fridge and made me nervous every time I opened it. For this reason I prepared a fiery and surprisingly tasty soup with coconut milk, chili pepper, lime peel and sesame.

Ingredients:

800g of Indian corn from a tin

1 tin of coconut milk

Everybody knows about stuffed cabbage, which is for some reason called "gołąbki". Traditionally, it consists of a meat stuffing wrapped in leaves of white cabbage. The traditional ingredients of the stuffing are pork mincemeat and rice. Nowadays, as well as white cabbage we wrap the stuffing in leaves of savoy cabbage or mild leaves of young cabbage, and there are as many kinds of stuffing as there are creative chefs.

Many countries in the world have their own gołąbki, not always wrapped in cabbage leaves. We know very well small Greek meat dolmades in grape leaves. To the stuffed cabbage we can add different seasonings and sauces, and we prepare them in many different ways. In the Czech Republic and Slovakia stuffed cabbages are called hołubce, in some regions of the United States they are called glubkis, and in Germany they are known as Krautwickel/Kohlrouladen. This dish is known in  Sweden as kåldolmar, and in Finland kaalikääryleet. On the Balkan Peninsula similar dishes are called sarme.

In my family home we ate gołąbki wrapped in white cabbage leaves with a meat filling without rice. Now for my family I make something similar, but sometimes I split with tradition and I use savoy cabbage rather than white cabbage, and to the filling I add rice or I make vegetarian stuffed cabbage with buckwheat groats and vegetables.

Today I would like to share with you a recipe (in my opinion) for the most traditional stuffed cabbages with meat, rice and tomato sauce.

Ingredients:

1 white cabbage

1kg of mincemeat

2 onions