My favourite brownie, made healthy topped with some homemade chocolate, also made healthy

I love this brownie recipe.  Technically I love the original. A friend brought a few pieces once when she was visiting and I fell in love with it. Few days later she gave me the recipe and I started making it myself. Honestly, it is so good that I could eat the entire tray myself. I skipped a few of the ingredients she gave me, simply because I don't like them, but it is still a delicious, soft and moist brownie magic.  Remember when I said I've been keeping a diet for time time now? Well, I had to give this guilty pleasure of mine up. Until I came up with the idea for the healthy substitute. And when I made it the first time it was yet another surprise - very tasty, very savoury and still kind of juicy. So, here's what you're gonna need for you healthy, gluten-free, sugar-free and dairy-free brownie:

• 3 cups flour(I usually combine all the flours I have at home - spelt flour, buckwheat flour, millet flour, rice flour, carob flour; there is no exact proportion - just kix them together to get the needed quantity)
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 6 tablespoons cocoa
• 1 teaspoon salt
• Vanilla extract
• 3 tablespoons vinegar
• 3/4 cup sunflower oil
• 2 cups cold water
• 5-6 tablespoons honey(if you like a sweeter taste, put few more spoons)

The preparation is really easy - first you combine all dry ingredients, I aslo put them through a sieve. Then add all the liquids and stir until you get a homogeneous mixture. Here's another trick of mine - before I put the honey, I heat it on the stove. I am not really sure if it helps the batter in any way, but the aroma in the kitchen is incredible.  Not it's redy for baking. You'll need your oven preheated to 180 C and it will take about 45 kinutes to bake. BUT. I always check it with a toothpick, because the size and the depth of the tray effects the baking time. And the tray I currently use is longer, wider, but more shallow and it takes about 20-25min to bake.  Once it is ready you can top it with the chocolate. It is also very easy to make and very tasty to eat. You will need:

• Hazelnut tahini
• Honey
• Cocoa powder

The proportion is 3:2 units tahini to honey aand for every 200g of that mixture you put 1 table spoon sieved cocoa powder. I mixed the hazelnut with just a bit of sunflower seed tahini just to try it out and it came out great. I prepared the chocolate over a water bath because I needed a more liquid texture - this way it spreads easier. But if you decide to kame the chocolate as a solo desert, you can skip the bath and mixthem cold - they still blend perfectly. Well there you have it, my favourite brownie gone healthy topped with homemade chocolate, surprisingly - also gone helathy :) I hope you try and enjoy it!

A more..... interesting.... vegetable soup

So for the past few months I have been on a diet that excludes everything I love 😃 That is why I have been trying to find and to make interesting recipes with the products I can eat.  I love my soup with lots of potatoes and noodles in it. But I can't have it this way now, so I came up with this combination of vegetables for my garden soup. I have to say I love the result. It is different than what I am used to, but it is still delicious.  The veggies you will need:

• Cauliflower
• Broccolli
• Fresh green peppers
• Fresh red peppers
• Fresh carrots
• Fresh onion
• Canned green peas
• Canned beans (I used Cannellini, but you can use the kind you prefer)
• Fresh celery (1 stalk is enough)
• Tomato juice or canned tomatoes

Of course, you'll need salt, pepper and olive oil. And to make it even more interesting, tasty and exotic, I added some freshly cut dill and a pinch of turmeric powder. You can adjust the quantity of the products to your taste, if you have a favourite among them - put more of it :) If you don't like celery - take the stalk out once the soup is ready. If you don't mind it - chop it in smaller pieces and leave it in.  The result? Delicious and aromatic meal that is a bit more different and not so traditional (at least around here). I hope you try and enjoy it as much as I do.

A little bit more different and a lot richer tuna salad

Do you like salad?  

I love salad! All kinds of salad! The richer it is - the better! Actually this is my way of making salad - I put almost everything I have in the fridge in it! I actually have this one friend that,most of all, loves my salads :) She says that I'm the only person that makes salads as she likes them(that's probably because we share a zodiac sign and we're almost the same person, but that's a different matter).  And then I have this other friend that goes "I don't like this and I don't eat that" but then she comes for dinner at our place with her family and and she leaves with a wider food experience 😃  Ok, back on topic, I was making a salad for dinner the other day and, as usual, I went into the closet to check what I have, besides the fresh green salad in the fridge, and I decided on a tuna can with a few other stuff.  So if you would like to experiment and try something different, here's what you'll need:

• Fresh green salad
• Fresh dill
• Sweet corn
• Canned tuna 
• Canned chickpeas (yes, chickpeas, I love chickpeas on a salad!)
• Sundried tomatoes in olive/sunflower oil(if they are regular - slice them, if they are cherry - they're good to go)
• Salt
• Lemon
• Olive oil(you could use some from the tomatoes)

That's it. This is a salad, so you can combine them as you like, in the proportions you prefer. If you like fish - put more tuna, if you love greens - put more salad, if you like sour taste - put more lemon. You can adjust it to your taste. To be honest, I was surprised by the fresh taste that the dill gave the whole thing, Hopefully, you will be surprised, too. Pleasantly surprised I hope :)  Well, If you like the idea - try it. If you enjoy the result - do tell :) Have a nice evening, World!

Muffins with dried prunes

Round two.

It is not my life's mission to eat healthy. It's more like "eat tasty" :) But when you can have both, why the hell not? Here is one recipe that I found recently (here I should mention that I found it in another blog, https://chefmanolova.wordpress.com, and she used a recipe form here: http://fitnesinstruktor.com/ by changing it a bit) for extremely delicious and tasty muffins with dried prunes that are gluten free, sugar free and flour free.

To be honest, I was not very optimistic at first, I wasn't pessimistic, but I din't have very high hopes. I was so pleasantly surprised by the result that now I can't stop making them and I can't stop eating them :) Which is not at all a bad thing, because, amongst all the things I cannot eat due to the regime I am under right now, this is one that I can! YAY! So, here's what you'll need:

80g raw sunflower seeds (peeled)
80g raw pumpkin seeds (peeled)
3 table spoons linseed
200gr dried prunes
12 dried prunes for the filling
4 big eggs
1 tea spoon baking powder
3-4 table spoons honey

First you're gonna need a blender or a food processor. We're gonna use the seeds to make flour. I have a standard blender that works just fine for me, so you don't need anything specific for that. Put all three types of seeds in it and let it do its thing until you get the flour as you prefer it - if you prefer fine milled, leave it for a little while, if you like the small crumbs of seeds, take them out earlier. In a bowl, combine the "flour" with the baking powder. Now you'll use the blender one more time for the prunes an eggs. The batter that comes out is fluffy and airy. Add the honey an the dry ingredients and stir until they are well mixed.

Now baking preparation. I use a standard size muffin form for 12 muffins. To save me the time when washing it, I also use paper paper liners. If you don't like the paper liners just don't forget to grease the form before adding the batter to it. Fill all 12 form to the half, then put the 12 dried prunes we've set aside earlier and then fill the form to the top. They are now ready to be baked.

You don't have to preheat the oven. Turn it on right before you put the muffins in. Turn it to 160 C and bake for 25-30 minutes with ventilator. I check them regularly to see if they are ready (you know, if a tooth pick comes out clean, they are ready) so sometimes it takes 20 minutes, other times - 30. But that's just my oven :) If you trust yours, you don't have to open it every 10 minutes. Once they are ready let them cool off for a little, because the whole prune inside is very delicious, but also extremely hot. There you have it!

Hope you try them and you like them, just as much as I do! Good night! :)

My mom's katmas (or katmi, as it is in Bulgarian) - something very traditional

So to start it off, I chose something very Bulgarian and very traditional - katmi.

This is a type of pastry that originally has no filling, but you can pretty much put everything on it. Anything and everything that you like. It is neither sweet, nor salty, so you can add whatever you please and go both ways. My boyfriend loves them with jam and white cheese(here, in Bulgaria, we mostly use one type of white cheese that is typical for our country. Not sure how easy it would be to find it elsewhere, but you can substitute with Feta - it's close enough). It is often mistaken for pancakes. You might actually get sold a pancake for a katma. And here I need to clarify one more thing - our pancakes are quite different than the well known Americans - the batter that is used is different, they are wider and bigger and are very thin.

Usually they are served and offered as breakfast, but trust me when I tell you - you can eat them anytime you like - breakfast, brunch, lunch, supper, dinner or as a midnight snack. Yeah, that's right.

Here's what you're going to need for the batter:
3 large eggs
1/2 tea spoon salt
300ml milk
300ml water
2/3 of a cube of fresh compressed yeast
~450gr white flour

This is what I do:
First I crush the yeast into small crumbs. In a small bowl I add to it a teaspoon of sugar and 1 or 2 teaspoons of flour. Add warm water to it, mix it until well blended and no crumbs and then set it aside for 5 to 10 minutes. You will see that it will increase its volume several times and it will acquire one more... bubbly... and porous texture. It's ready.

While I wait for the yeast to leaven, I mix all the other ingredients. Starting with the eggs. First I beat the eggs well in a bowl, then I add the milk, water and salt ( stir so that all liquids are mixed well). Then I add the already leavened yeast mixture. Again, stir well and then I slowly start adding the flour while, of course, stirring vigorously. Now, we finally have the batter ready. It should have a thicker texture, but still be in a liquid-ish state. Again, it rests for 30-40 minutes until the yeast, again does its magic, this time to the whole thing.

Remember how the yeast looked after 10 minutes? Well you should have pretty much the same picture. The batter should be bubbly, airy and porous. Now we can bake.

I use a mid-size pancake pan, 23cm wide and 2cm deep - it is pretty shallow but that's what makes it so good for pancakes. And katmi. With this size of the pan and that amount of the batter you will get 8 perfect, round, airy, soft, 0,5cm-high golden katmi. Yum-yum.  Do not grease the pan - pour the batter into the dry pan. Set the hot plate on a medium high temperature (for example, my hot plate has 3 levels, I use the second one) - this way you won't burn them on the outside until they bake on the inside. Naturally, you have to flip on both side until you get that so-craved golden-brown colour. After you take every katma off the pan grease it with butter on both sides - this will make it soft and easy to roll. Only 7 more to go and you are ready to eat!

Well, that's it! I'm afraid you're gonna need to make some more, because they disappear with the speed of light and they are oh-so-delicious... As I said, you can have them salty - with some ham or salami and cheese and some mustard on top, or you can have them sweet with your favourite jam or maple syrup or, even better, with honey. And some powdered sugar. Ok, I have to stop now because I am drooling all over my keyboard. If you've had the patience to read everything to the end, thank you very much, I hope you try my mom's katmi, I hope you like them and I really hope they become a regular guest on your table. Some spoiler pictures, just to get the image :) Good night!

So I decided to become a blogger...

Hello you who, for some reason, intentionally or by accident, decided to stop by and read my first-ever article. Thank you for giving me a bit of your time. 

On several occasions I have thought about starting a blog but I just never did it. I don't know why. But now, I guess I got inspired, and here it is. Truth be told, not long ago I watched the "Julie & Julia" and this is what really got me here :) I guess Mrs. Child still is one quite inspirational woman. 

I wouldn't say I am the best cook but I do love spending time around the kitchen and I love sharing the results so I said "Why not?" I guess this passion for food comes with the territory, or in my case - with my zodiac sign :) I am a cancer and we love good food, we love eating and, boy, do we love a fully stocked fridge.

So, yeah, that's it - I love cooking. I don't do it every day but when I do - I'll try to share the results. I love traditional Bulgarian food so I'm gonna be making probably a lot of it. Hopefully you will try it and like it as well. 

That's all from me. For now :)