Chicken in sweet and sour sauce

I adore pizza, but I have to admit that I have an appetite for chicken in sweet and sour sauce for some time. Of course, it should be prepared with rice noodle, which guests in my kitchen very often. This is one of my favourite dishes, so I’ll share the recipe for this delicious dinner with pleasure. :)

 Ingredients:

350 g of chicken

1 full tablespoon of potato flour

1cm piece of fresh ginger

1 clove of  garlic

1 small onion

1/4 cup of rice vinegar (or lemon juice)

4 tablespoons of sugar cane (you can substitute by white sugar)

freshly ground pepper

1 green or red pepper, cut into 1.5 cm cubes

a pinch of chili flakes -  amount to taste

2 tablespoons of soy sauce

1 tablespoon of vegetable oil

Preparation:

Clean the chicken breasts from a membrane and veins. Cut into 1.5cm cubes. Season with salt and mix it with potato flour. Peel the ginger and garlic and cut it into thin slices. Chop the onion.

Pour a cup of rice vinegar, add 3 tablespoons of water and sugar, mix all and set aside. Cook the rice or pasta according to packet instructions, then drain in a sieve, pour water. ( I use rice noodle, yummy!)

In a large frying pan, heat the oil, add ginger, garlic and spring onions, fry for a minute, put the chicken and fry again over medium heat for about 5 minutes and mix all from time to time. At the end of cooking add the pepper, chilli and half of teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper.

Pour the vinegar with water and sugar, stir and bring to a boil. Cook for about 3 minutes until the vinegar will be soft and the sauce starts to caramelise. Add the soy sauce and stir.

Push the ingredients to the pan aside, in the free space put the rice or pasta. Fry the rice or pasta for a minute to heat up and stir it.. At the end stir everything in the frying pan and sprinkle with chopped chives and peanuts.

Bon appetit!!

Folgarida - Val di Sole

We reached our aim after 14 hours of journey. I cannot describe this feeling when I got the first breath of the alpine air… That’s I needed! This alpine air, rest, and skiing. At the beginning I was afraid that there isn’t any snow in Italy, because during the journey on the highway the sun was shining and it was warm. However, we saw the powder snow in Val di Sole which made us very happy.

At the tops of the mountains we can see temperatures dropping to lower than -14 C., so from time to time we sit in some mountain huts where we can warm up and drink something good :).

The ski slopes are wide, and the most important, everyone will be satisfied because they are well poised. Most of the ski slopes are red, which I really like, blue for beginners and black for those who like a fairly risky driving  (e.g. me) :) . As I mentioned before, in Val di Sole there are up to 188 km of ski slopes, so every day we are in a different place and we can admire the beautiful scenery.

Ahhh… And the last thing. Here is a really delicious Italian pizza. Yummy!! :)

Italy!

Hi again!

Today I am going  to skiing in northern Italy. It has been a while since I was on my last trip abroad so I am pretty excited about a trip alone. But when I think that I go skiing – it brings a big smile on my face J

Bu where exactly am I heading? This time it is Folgarida, a lovely place located in the heart of Val di Sole(The Sun Valley). The valley is not named that way by accident: even in the winter there are a lot of sunny days, and as every skier knows, it makes a perfect combination. Weather can be unpredictable, but my friends that know the place confirm that it is not a hyperbole – the sun is shining in the valley. What is most important – there are a lot of ski slopes (about 180 km), snow parks, ski lifts, refreshment venues – everything needed for great alpine adventure: ski experience, great views, training for our body and mind, bombardini to drink… I can’t wait!J Apartments are also tested and approved by my friends – to be fair we made our preparation carefully J

We are going to travel with 8 of my friends in one bus – so the trip alone should be fun. There are a lot of details to take care of, I hope everything will pan out. At this moment I am looking nervously at the weather forecasts! But, come on – it’s the Alpes, heart of winter, there have to be snow out there!

Zanzibar or Maldives?

Ok, because we are talking about the wedding I think we can go a step further. Lately, I wonder where I would like to go on honeymoon with my future husband. Certainly, it will be a warm country, so for the biggest journey of our life we will go in the winter  to enjoy the high temperatures, beautiful sandy beaches and red sunsets ...

Currently,  on my mind there are two options:  Maldives and Zanzibar. These places are perfect for relaxing and spending time together J. Just look at these descriptions:

“Unrivalled luxury, stunning white-sand beaches and an amazing underwater world make the Maldives an obvious choice for a true holiday of a lifetime.”

“With some of the best diving and snorkelling in the world, the clear waters of the Maldives are a magnet for anyone with an interest in marine life. The richness and variety is astonishing; dazzling coral walls, magnificent caves and schools of brightly coloured tropical fish await you when you get down to the reef. In deeper waters lurk manta rays, turtles, sharks and even the world’s largest fish, the whale shark. The best bit? The water is so warm many people don’t even wear a wetsuit.”

“The Maldives is home to perhaps the best beaches in the world; they’re on almost every one of the country’s nearly 1200 islands and are so consistently perfect that it’s hard not to become blasé about them. While some beaches may boast softer granules than others, the basic fact remains: you’ll find consistently whiter-than-white powder sand and luminous cyan-blue water like this almost nowhere else on earth.”

Source:  http://www.lonelyplanet.com/maldives#ixzz3wIbDOdYV

I started to dream about the trip on Zanzibar after reading the book “Blondynka na Zanzibarze” written by Beata Pawlikowska, a Polish writer. The author described the Island as follows:

An Island in the Indian Ocean, famous for its beautiful beaches and the slave trade, Stone Town, cinnamon, vanilla, pepper and cloves in the spice plantation, mango trees, Arabian princess, Zanzibar kitchen and the secret of happiness.

Do you agree that both descriptions sound very invitingly :) ?

The very thought of this I am in paradise. Regardless of which destination we’ll  choose, I feel it will be a great time.

Wedding dress

Wow! To Poland came Mrs. Winter – behind the windows we have 12 degrees of frost and a lot of snow. That's all I was missing. Unfortunately, I am a little ill, but as soon as I get back to health, I'll go for a long walk! Besides, we have a New Year, and in consequence, in August, I’m getting married, so I have less and less time. We want to button up everything, but there is one thing that held my choices until now. Namely, it comes to a wedding dress. I have a terrible mess in my head, because I do not know which one I should choose. I go on fitting since October. I was in several salons and I'm afraid I have not found the dress of my dreams. Recently I saw two dresses that I really liked but they are quite different and now I am in a muddle.

I hope that soon I will find my wedding dress, and after that it will be downhill - at least I think so J

Wish me luck!

New Year's Eve

Hey!

How was your holidays with your family? For me, it was very nice, warm and cosy. Ah, there's no place like home! When it comes to my grandparents, I was not wrong. We asked them to bake a miodownik - another interesting delicacy (honey cake). My grandmother is brilliant in cooking and baking. The order was adopted, but ... Miodownik didn’t reach the destination . It stayed at my grandparents’s home because they forgot to take it out of the kitchen :).

Beloved, today, New Year's Eve. Crazy night in front of us, full of dancing and great music. Have a great time and wake up without a hangover!

 I wish you all the best in the New Year!

Skiing

Hello all!

Few days ago, just after the Christmas I went with my family to the famous Polish ski resort – Zieleniec. After this short trip, when I was on my road back home I breathed a sigh of relief.  I guess right now you are thinking that I hate skiing – and you got it wrong. Actually It’s exactly opposite: I love it! So what’s the matter?

As I said before, I love skiing – same as my father. Since I was a child we travelled to many Polish and European ski resorts and I have a lot of fun while doing it. But 4 years ago, I had an accident on ski slope – I had a collision with other person(on a side note: this was his faul…) and I injured my knee pretty badly. It took me 4 years to try again – Zieleniec was my first ski experience since then.  Just before I tried I was really, really stressed . The biggest doubt on my mind was whether my knee is ok, but I was also worried that I forgot how to ski! Luckily, it is like riding a bike – once you learned it, you can do it even after longer break. Of course, getting back to your best can take a little longer…

But I made it, I overcome my fear and I can move ahead – in the middle of January I will do the skiing in Val di Sole!

One last thing about Zieleniec. It is a great place to ski and I totally recommend it…and I claim it despite the fact that the snow was missing. It was rather a mud or an ice skiing but…still a lot of fun! J