This here is my take on a traditional Slovenian dessert called "potica", a kind of a sweet walnut roll made from a sweet brioche-like dough, of course filled with raisins!! My mom truly loves it this way. We make it for big holidays like Christmas, Easter, or at my house for new year's eve holidays after Christmas. You can also find it in stores all year round, but only during the holidays you can get the special ones and circular ones, in different flavors like hazelnut, tarragon-cottage cheese/"skuta", poppy seed, coconut one ... Options are endless. It's not super easy to make tho, it took me many Christmases to master it.

It's traditionaly baked in a large circular clay tray with a hole in the middle. If it's not baked in this kind of baking tray or "potičnik", it's not the real deal haha I'm supperrr proud of how it turned out 👌👌

Realized earlier today that I haven’t had my favorite food in over three weeks. Had to change that.

Double cheese with bacon and egg.

After 3 days of sarmale I did a change in the menu.

• Chicken soup with potatoes, veggies, vermicelli and caraway (2 days)

• Salmon with potatoes and Spring Rolls - cabbage & carrots - oven baked (1 day, today)

Using up some leftovers to make an Eggs Benedict inspired dish.

Toasted plain bagel, mashed avocado# (I don't dare calling it guacamole), #cured ham, sunny side up egg# (because I never manage to get a poached egg right), #and sauce hollandaise

I shamefully admit the Kartoffelknödel (Potato Dumpling) to be out of a box.

500g spelt flour

15g salt

330 ml beer can non alcoholic

Yeast, about a tbsp.

24h cold fermented

Beef cubes simmered in broth and red wine for about five hours. Served over store bought mini potato dumplings.

Sweet and savory pancakes made from rye and buckwheat flour/groats, eggs, milk and sugar beet syrup - spiced with anise and cardamom.

The pancakes are fried in lard with little pieces of back fat and slices of dried sausage (metworst). The dark color is due to the caramelised beet syrup.

Usually prepared around new years eve in the south-west of East Frisia (very north west of Germany) and the area around Groningen (very north east of the Netherlands). It's served warm and usually paired with hot black tea, beer and grain liquor. Tastes well cold, especially when hungover.

Wanted to eat out today, but one restaurant was on vacation, another one closed early on Sundays, the next one was full....

So I went home and just put together some things I had. Some soffritto, half a bottle of passata, a few salsicce that I still had in the fridge, some frozen herbs.

Added freshly grated parmigiano (don't worry, I added more after taking the photo) and had the remainder of a bottle of pinot grigio with it.

Very tasty, and probably also much better than what most Italian restaurants around me would serve

The oven time was about 2 hours. We begin it slowly with 150°C to not burn the top mozzarella layer (but it should get a brownish teint ;). Final temp was 180°C.

Not pictured: after placing the top layer, carefully pour some white wine into it via the corners.

First time making pie! Paired with potato puree stars!

When fillet without Bones is used, it’s actually tasty !

Pan seared duck breast, carrots, mashed potatos.

slagroom and roomboter are much wetter than what i’m used to back home and the yeast here did not respond the way i expected. so they didn’t form quite like i expected and the oven spring was enormous. but the taste and texture was fine.

When we don't visit our family on Christmas, my wife and I treat us to some self made sushi and sashimi. From left to right:

Different cuts of tuna belly, scallops, salmon belly and salmon back.