This recipe was inspired by an overload of zucchini a few weeks ago, and a newsletter from Once upon a chef that landed in my inbox at about the same time. The zucchini came together with hand-picked black and red currants from my friend parents' garden, so I picked this recipe from Jenn's zucchini menu to put … Continue reading Fluted Zucchini Cake
It was a week of exploration and discoveries, sublime food and new friendships. At the beginning of September last year my daughter Monika was married to a wonderful man, and they had chosen Villa Medicea di Lilliano in beautiful Tuscany as a location for their wedding. For me and some others from our family it … Continue reading What Slovak and Italian cuisine have in common
The High Tatras - our most spectacular mountains - were bathing in the warm August sunshine when we sat in a cable car taking us to Skalnaté pleso, a mountain lake at the altitude of 1751 metres. Skalnaté pleso (or Rocky Lake) was the starting point for our walking trip that day. We expected it to be a walk - not … Continue reading A Taste of the High Tatras
When I was doing research on lečo - a dish that landed in our cuisine while we were under Hungarian rule between 1000 and 1918 - I came across various recipes ranging from a meatless option to an eggy one to a letcho with a spicy, Hungarian-style sausage. What all these recipes had in common was green … Continue reading Letcho
It was during one of my pregnancies when I fell out of love with shop-bought ketchup. My taste became sharper and more sensitive to artificial flavourings and chemical preservatives, so I naturally avoided them in all foods. On one occasion though, I tried my mum's homemade ketchup, and it felt like a discovery. As a … Continue reading Home-made Ketchup
Inspired by a visitor to Cookslovak Facebook page who asked about 'a baked green bean egg dish that my mother used to make', I thought back to my time as a university student. I remember eating something similar at my aunt's house in the south of Slovakia, where they still grow their own yellow runner beans … Continue reading Yellow Runner Bean Soufflé
The Carpathian Mountains - a long mountain range running across Central and Eastern Europe, including Slovakia - have always been home to rich fauna. Brown bears, wolves, martens and wild boars, foxes, mouflons, or deer are only a few game species that populate the Carpathians in Slovakia. Some of them are still hunted for food … Continue reading Carpathian Fallow Deer Fillets with Mushrooms
Summer is an ideal time for getting together out in the open. Here in Slovakia, a small landlocked country in the middle of Europe, summer peaks in July and August with temperatures most likely to be between 26 - 30ºC. We've had extremely hot and dry summers in the last couple of years when the … Continue reading Summer festivals celebrate life and good food
As with all other produce this summer, we're blessed with a plentiful crop of apricots. Their main growing area is in the warm southern regions of Slovakia, but thanks to the new tougher varieties developed over the last few years, we can now harvest this soft, fleshy fruit in colder climates as well. I don't … Continue reading Preserving apricots
It's time again for preserving summer produce from our gardens. Slovak summer started very early this year, in fact, it replaced spring with temperatures going up to 26 - 30ºC in April and May, something we haven't seen in 80 years. It meant we could harvest summer fruit and vegetables much earlier than usual, and … Continue reading Home-made Redcurrant Syrup
