Let It Snow!

Warsaw’s under the snow siege… seriously, it’s been snowing since monday and temperatures dropped well below zero, and I meant it, it’s -10C today and two days ago was -20C. So it’s cold outside, cold and snowy – in our garden the snow reaches up to the knees in defined spots. This weather makes people hungry and craving for comfort food with a fire, just to keep one warm. Today I’m still from yesterday, as I partied hard till 2 am but it was worth it. I looked like a million and felt like it definetely. Maybe I had such a good time coz I went with my best friend, and there was noone to spoil my fun. Only for your viewing pleasure here’s a picture of moi being Rita Hayworth (as everyone was to come dressed up as a star), the pic isn’t the best but I took it at 3am… ask me no questions, I tell you no lies

Enough vanity and back to food. So after partying till early morning I woke up around noon, only to remeber that I promissed my parents weekend cooking. After a breakfast snack and cold medicines – as my voice got lost somewhere at the party last night, and getting freaking cold on wednesday didn’t help either, I’m feeling like I’m going down with a cold – I went to inspect the fridges and pantry. To my deepest delight I found shrimps, canned tomatos and a cube of a balkan cheese. Then I remebered that sometime ago there was this recipe in Kuchnia for the shrimps baked in tomato sauce. Just to give it enough twist I decided to go for spicy sauce which would be topped with balkan cheese. Balkan cheese which my father got few days ago comes from Bulgaria and tastes similar to feta, but it’s made from goat milk only what gives a nice strong taste to it, very nice indeed and cheeper than feta

I have a love/hate relationship with shrimps. I always loved them and could eat lots, but about 2 years ago after the shrimps we always buy I got horribly sick. Seriously, I haven’t been sick like that never before and never after, we had all eaten them but only one shrimp must have been bad… I didn’t recover for few days. So right now I’m very carefull around those, but today it was impossible to resist the craving… oh well… living la vida loca

Shrimps under the tomato duvet balkan style

(feeds about 4)

500g shrimps (cleaned and headless)

1 can of pelati tomatos (400g) chopped

1 box of chopped tomatos (those are a blessing on winter days)

1 onion sliced

1 small leek sliced

2 big cloves garlic sliced

200g balkan cheese (I used this one, but don’t know if one can get it outside of Poland)/feta(important 100% goat cheese)

3 tea spoons of Ajvar (hot)

Place the shrimps in bake dish, set aside. Preheat the oven to 200C (or 180C with a fan). In the frying pan fry quickly onion, leek and garlic, add tomatos. Stir and let cook for 5 mins. Add Ajvar, salt and pepper to taste. Let cook for another few minutes. Pour the sauce over the shrimps and make sure that they are nicely covered. Crumble the cheese and cover the sauce with the crumbles. Put into the hot oven and bake for about 25 mins. Serve with pasta or bread.