Cold cucumber soup (Tarator)

Tarator is one of the most typical dishes of Bulgarian cuisine. It is a cold soup based on the combination of yogurt, cucumbers and garlic. Some olive oil, dill and crushed walnuts are the recommended additions to this summer dish which slakes the thirst in the hot summer days. 

Garlic and hot pepper prawns (Gambas Al Ajillo)

Summer arrived officially. Along with the swimming and diving this means to me a lot of seafood on the table. Shrimps are common guests home, but this is one of my favorite recipes - the taste of fried garlic and hot pepper makes me feel like I am on the Mediterranean coast.

I love to visist the fish markets abroad- I love the smell of the fresh caught fish, the colors and shapes of the different species, all the inviting voices of the vendors. And when they allow me to make a picture of them, I am even happier. 

Dock and quinoa soup

Diet times again. The forthcoming summer has a lot of requirements, one of them to look good. This is a light and tasty soup which makes you satiated with small amount of calories. Tasty and healthy. You can substitute spinach or Swiss chard for the dock. 

Grilled asparagus

We are orthodox Christians in our family and we do not have the tradition to celebrate Saint Valentine's day. But I think, some romance is good for every couple and this is a good opportunity to celebrate love. So I wanted to serve for dinner something light and easy to prepare, but it was supposed to bring festive touches to the table. 

Asparagus. Simply grilled. With a smoky flavour and crispy texture. Just with a soft boiled egg and some Parma ham for everybody. Really good idea. Well, outside is - 20° Celsius, so it had to be indoor grilling. My grill pan is good enough to give the foods grillmarks we love, so in less than 10 minutes I was ready. 
We wanted to enhance the joy and used our fingers instead of silverware. 
A good beginning of a long night. 

Sausage meatballs with tomato sauce

As I told you, this weekend was a soup weekend. Soups were created fast and disappeared fast and everybody was busy with eating and/or cooking.
This dish is my son's absolute favourite and I always know, he will devour it minutes after I make it. I watched a chef preparing it on a German TV show some months before and it was described as an Italian specialty fast and easy to make. But as far as I saw on the net, Jamie Oliver has something very close to it. So do many other prominent or not so promiment housewifes around the world. Some people serve it as a pasta sauce, other with a thick slice of bread. My son Peter didn't want to wait the cooking time of the spaghetti (which is 10 minutes according to the instructions), so decision was taken.
I added some dried chilies to my plate. Do we like this "soup"? Well, yes, and as you can see, there was not much to put in the plate for my blog's needs. Peter was fast enough to win the competition. And not only he.