Unexpected guests? Oh No? Oh yeah! Bring it on!

I have no idea if you've ever been in this situation- you come back home, you're tired and somebody calls you to say " yeah, I'm nearby, I'll pop over for 5 minutes, I haven't seen you so long". No? Maybe it's just me.

( sorry for the crappy pics, ipads do not take good photos)
<- crakers with cheddar cheese and strawberries, plain crackers with goat cheese, pear slices sprinkled with cayenne pepper. Next are rosette slices folded,cherry tomatoes, and strawberries.

<- crackers with cheddar cheese and pear slices, rosette, pear, more cheese, tomatoes, and sliced strawberries

 Please mind the gap

<- these are pepper crackers with cream cheese, chopped chives and a strawberry slice, next to some cherry tomatoes, cheddar cheese, and radish sprouts for a kick

 <- Basicaly the same as upstairs, except with rosette salami, and sliced pear
















Anyway, a list of snack staples to keep around the house for times like this. Or when you don't really feel like cooking. Let everybody else do it. Their way. Let's smorgasbord! Love the word by the way :)
This is a list of things to have ( but you don't need to have all of them at once:))and how to serve"

Fridge:

• smoked salmon, sliced, served with lemon and fresh dill, serve on salad
• cream cheese philadefia, in a small bowl and butter knife
• edam, gouda, cheddar cheese, in small pieces or slices, any cheese can do
• small bowl of cherry tomatoes, or served in clusters with cheese or cold meat
• bunch of radishes, sliced or with the stems for easy holding
• carrots, cut in stalks, in a glass
• celery, cut in stalks, in a glass
• lettuce, served on crackers, sandwiches, or in small bowls, or as dressing
• lemon, cut in wedges for drinks or seasoning
• jar of mini pickles, served in small bowls, or cut in stalks, on a salad bed
• pickles of any kind (radishes, gherkins, carrots,) served as a topping or aside on salad
• pearl onion pickles, in a small bowl, with toothpicks
• french pate in a jar ( comes from carrefour, quite handy), serve with a butter knife
• cold meat (rozette, cured sirloin, kabanosy), cut in small slices, on a plate, or on crackers
• cured baco, can wrap up prunes for baking, or fry it up, or fold it like a ribbon, serve on salad
• butter, small pieces, on plates, or a small bowl, with butter knife
• fresh cucumber, thin slices, on salad or a plate
• small bell pepper, half cut in thin slices, half diced for toppings or nibbling on, in a glass
• mayonaise, small jar, served in small bowl, or on crakers with toppings
• hoummus, in small bowl around the table
• horseradish, small jar, in small bowl
• greek joghurt- small bowl for making dips and sauces

 Freezer:

• pancakes- which you can make from here and freeze
• waffles- buy them ready made if , like me, you don't have the waffle maker, and freeze in ziploc bags
• shrimps
• baguette
• loaf of bread ( you can defrost it in 15 minute in your oven, preheat 180C, just wet your bread first)
• frozen dumplings with cheese filling, or kopytka
• frozen pizza ( our fav: Ristorante for 20 min bake for a nice crunchy crust)
• leftover lasagne sauce, or lasagne, or stuffed bell peppers
• green beans 
• fava beans for nibbling on

Cupboard:

• can of chickpeas ( to make hoummus or minestrone soup)
• small can of corn (for salads, or as a fast, cheap side dish, or to add to a soup for more oumff)
• can of tuna ( for pasta, pizza, sandwiches, salads, your cat)
• small can of pineapple ( for dessert, cocktails, thai food, cravings)
• raisins, cranberries, almonds, pine nuts, dried apples, prunes ( for baking, nibbling, cooking stews, desserts, meat)
• applesauce (cookies, cakes, pies, cravings, on waffles, or pancakes, to serve with duck)
• maple syrup ( pancakes, drinks, coffee, cookies, marinades )
• box of dried herbs (oregano, basil, parsley, dill, garlic salt, onion, curry, cayenne pepper, tarragon, sea salt, colored pepper corns)
• olives- black, green or verde (yum!) to snack on
• crackers
• jam ( great for pancakes, crepes, cookies)

For me, these are must haves, and it helps out a lot, especially when I'm really lazy:)

New pigs in blankets on the block

I love ready made pastry. It's a blessing, as I'm not that great with punching dough all day. I especially love french pastry, ready to go, ready to use.

When I started reading Roahl Dahl books, I started reading about dishes that weren't popular anymore. They were a relict of past times. Sponge cake, triffle cake, toad in the hole, the sort. Actually it sounded really good. Especially the triffle.  Mhmmm. I'll get to that one day.
So, what's toad in the hole got to do with pigs in blankets?
Actually, nothing. Piglets in baby blankets are a popular snack in the US for parties, here, our friend from Belgium introduced it to our group, served with dijon mustard. (Thanks Maxim!)
And they dissapear fast.
I think it's because when people come over for a party, they are usually quite hungry. Waiting for all the guests to come, they snack at the table and in general, "the early bird gets the worm". Or piglet.
So, let's say you're not going to a party, but, you're hungry, and you have french puff pastry. And some sausages. And some ketchup and mustard and mayo on hand. In squeeze bottles. or you're handy with a knife:)

Let's hear it for the piglets! Applause!

Type of dish: snack
Cost: cheap
Difficulty: easy
Serves: 2-4
Time: 20 min
Preparation time: 5min
Baking time: 10-15 min
Oven temp: 180C

You'll need:
cutting board, sharp knife, fork, baking tray, parchement paper or silpat,

Ingredients:

• 4 sausages or hotdogs
• 1 piece of french puff pastry
• ketchup
• mayonaise
• dijon mustard

What to do when your oven doesn't want to explode:
Heat your oven up to 180C.  Put your baking tray inside the oven.
Roll out your puff pastry, paper side down. Remove the foil from the sausages if you have it, and set aside.
For a dinner, for 2-4 people, do this.
Using your knife and a sausage for help, figure out how to cut the pastry so you can easily fold up the sausage in pastry to enclose it, but with a pinky finger worth of space on each side. We are going to wrap it up completly. And add the condiments before baking. So there needs to be a little space there.
When you know where to cut and fold, put the sausages in place, and squirt on a line of ketchup next to it. And a line of mustard. Or mayonaise, depends on the mix of flavours you like. Or smear it on.
Now fold the pastry over the sausage,  and use fork to gently press the sides together. You'll have something looking like the apple pie in McDonalds. Take the knife and gently make 3-4 cuts in the top of the pastry, so you can see the sausage. Transfer all the pastries on a silpat or parchement paper, take out the baking tray from the oven, gently slide the silpat or paper on,  pop in the oven for 10-15 min.
Your pastries should puff up, and turn golden. Take them out, allow to cool down for 3-4 mins and serve.

Party version of piglets- cut the sausage in 3cm pieces. Fold in the dough each piece without the condiments ( it'll fall apart if you do), and bake 15 min until golden. Serve with additional mustard or mayo fordiping and toothpicks. A popular mix is ketchup mixed with mayonaise.
Party Time!!!

Apple fruity bar

I had A Craving. In this Craving, I was eating something good, moist, loaded with chunks of crunchy apples, maybe some dried fruit, and some nuts. And this was formed like a bar of chocolate. Oh, it was good....
So search no more if you have cravings like mine! I finaly have the recipe you've not been looking for!

Let's go! The faster you make it, the sooner you can eat it ( my personal philosophy)


Type of dish: dessert, snack
Cost: cheap, medium
Difficulty: easy
Serves: 4-6
Time: 40 min
Preparation time: 20 min
Baking time: 20- 25 min
Oven temp: 180C

You'll need:
a cutting board, sharp knife, mixer, 2 medium to large bowls, a spatula, tablespoon, teaspoon, a cup, , a shallow large baking dish- rectangle or square size 23x30 or something that size.

Ingredients:

• 3 medium or large apples ( try the more tangy, crisp type)- half dice finely, half puree.
• a handfull of dried apricots finely diced
• 4-5 ripe plums, pitted, finely diced
• 4 tbsp of butter, softened
• 2/3 cup of brown sugar. Use white sugar if you haven't got brown. Go on, make yourself happier.
• 3 tbsp milk
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup any kind of nuts you want, chopped, like walnuts, hazelnuts, pistacios, the sort. Or drop it out. But it's good and healthy and great for your poor tired brain. Boost 'em up!
• 3/4 tsp baking soda 
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves ( I skipped it)
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1 1/3 cup all purpose flour
• 1/2 chopped dates- optional ( I prefered apricots)

Get along:
Chop up the fruit and dump in the bowl. Preheat oven and grease your baking dish. Beat the butter and sugar together so you get a creamy fluffy mixture. Add the milk and egg. mix again.  Add the rest of the ingredients to the bowl, mix well, taste it. Pour the batter in the baking dish, smooth it down with your spatula  and bake for 20-25 min, until it's dry when you insert a toothpick and it come out clean and dry. Then turn off the oven and leave the door closed. This is a moist cake, so it need maximum baking/drying action. After around 20 min you can take it out, start cutting in bars the size of a bounty bar. It's good. The rest you can wrap up in cling film separately, put in a zip lock bag and freeze. When you want a dessert for lunch at work just take out one bar, and by the time you get where you want to and want to eat it, it's defrosted.
I love it.


Additional info: you can add raisins, cranberries, almonds, anything you want to this cake. You can use applesauce instead of cutting up the apples. Just use then 1 cup of the applesauce. This is also good for anybody on a low sodium diet.

Prunes wrapped in cured bacon

I'll tell you something- this is remarkably easy to make. And kids can make them too, as it's fun!

Type of dish: starter, snack
Cost: medium
Difficulty: easy
Serves: 2-8
Time: 20 min
Preparation time: 10min
Baking time: 10 min
Oven temp: 180C

What you need to prepare this dish:
Shallow baking dish with parchment paper, toothpicks

Ingredients:

• 1 packet dried prunes
• 20-30 strips of cured smoked bacon / or regular smoked bacon
• lamb lettuce

How to prepare:
Heat oven to 180C. Wrap each prune in a strip of the bacon. Put a toothpick in each prune and place it in the baking dish. When you've wrapped all the prunes, pop the dish in the oven for 10 min, then take them out. Best served warm, not scalding hot!

Serving ideas:
You can place them on a plate, or in a tartelet dish filled with some lamb lettuce with a little vinaigratte for color. Or instead of putting the prunes on toothpicks, try putting them on wooden skewers. Yum.

The exceptional Salmon Paste

There's lots to be told about salmon. Lots of recipes, but most of them involve salmon, lemon juice and fresh dill. This recipe is no exception, but it's so good, I can't not post it. Best with a fresh baguette, that's all I'm saying. We tried it on toast fours, on baguette, on cut precel bread and it was always yummy.
Check it out:



Type of dish: snack, starter
Cost: medium
Difficulty: easy
Serves: 4-10
Time: 30 min
Preparation time: 5 min
Serving time: 20 min

What you need to prepare this dish:
Blender, bowl, knife, spoon, cutting board, toaster (additional), pastry bag with a regular nozzle (like and "O")

Ingredients:

• 250grams of smoked salmon
• 1 tbsp of fresh cream
• 100 grams mascarpone cheese
• 1 tbsp dried dill
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• pinch of salt
• pinch of pepper
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 baguette/ or 2 pretzels/ or  half a loaf of toasted white bread

How to prepare:

Prepare your blender. Put in everything apart from the bread, and blend until the mixture resembles a cream cheese and the salmon is evenly shredded. Taste a bit to see if it needs more lemon juice or salt, or pepper. Cooking is all about tasting, people! Besides, why would the cook go hungry? :)
Put the paste in the fridge to cool down a bit, and cut the bread into desired slices. Triangles, squares, or just cut the bread in 4-5mm slices. If you're using white bread, you're in for more fun. Toast it in the toaster or your oven, cool it down, cut off the edges and cut to the shape you want it. Take your salmon paste out of the fridge and put a teaspoon on each piece of bread you have, or, if you have to make more, put the salmon paste in a pastry bag, and squirt out the amount needed.
Garnish with fresh dill and lemon wedges on the side.

Lazy or what? Black olives fragrant version

 

I love these olives. They're my best friends up to 3 weeks if I make a lot of them. It's worth making more, as they always dissapear faster than estimated. Which is nice too. Great for a snack, great for an apero, they are always welcome here:)

Type of dish: starter, snack

Cost: medium
Difficulty: easy
Serves: 1-9
Time: 90 min
Preparation time: 10min

What you need to prepare this dish:

a large clean jar with lid, cutting board, knife,  colander

Ingredients:

• 1 jar of pitted black olives
• 4 garlic cloves, peeled
• 2 twigs of fresh rosemary
• a bottle of olive oil

How to prepare:

 Drain the olives in the collander, shake around so they won't have more water in them. Cut the garlic in slices, strip the twigs of the rosemary leaves. Put some garlic and rosemary in the bottom of the jar, fill up a quater of the way with olives, put in some more garlic and rosemary, again with the olives, and repeat untill you have no more olives left. Next pour in the olive oil, gently tapping the jar to get the air out of the olives and the olive oil in them. Put the lid on, and store in a dark , cold place, not exactly the fridge, but it can do if your fridge doesn't go into minus temperatures.  After an hour, the olives already have a delicate garlicy- rosemary taste. Utter heaven!

Delicious ham roll

Look at these yummy suckers... They are soooo good! I was oficially introduced to them while visiting in Marseille our friends Olga and Ben ( Hi guys!). They are easily made, are delicious and they shut up crying kids ( tried it, it works). We made about a ton of them for our apero party for the Duka contest, and they are a blast!


Here's your how-to:

Type of dish: snack
Cost: medium
Difficulty: easy
Serves: 4-9
Time: 30 min
Preparation time: 25min

What you need to prepare this dish:
cutting board, sharp small knife, butter knife, toothpicks, plate to serve

Ingredients:

• 200 grams of ham ( if you have access to polish ham, try searching for szynka litewska)
• 2 packages of cream cheese, philadefia type
• 1 bunch of chives
• additional for the garnishing- either more chives or use fresh chopped dill

How to prepare:
Using the butter knife, fluff up a bit the cream cheese, so it's easier to spread over the ham slices. Chop finely the chives on the cutting board and leave it there for a sec. Take a slice of ham, spread thinly some cream cheese over the ham, and sprinkle some chopped chives over the chesse and start rolling the ham into a tight long roll. Next, cut the roll in bite sized pieces. If you're picky about the size ann inch long will be great. Pierce a toothpick in each roll and put on a plate. Sprinkle with leftover chives or dill. Ready to gobble up!

Stuffed pasta shells in tomato sauce

This is a biggie for smuggling stuff kids don't usually like, such as spinach. I know, weird right? But here's the thing with spinach- if you overcook it, get gets gross. Here, we cooked for a few minutes fresh spinach with some garlic, drained it from the murky stuff that appears later, and mixed it with riccota cheese. That plus a creamy tomato sauce will make the pickiest people eat this dish without no problems. Truth is, when I have picky guests, I never tell them exactly what we're going to eat, I observe them eat, smile, and pat their tummies, then I tell them, they had spinach, or garlic, or other stuff. Like my husband. Hates tons of things and really need to hide them in the food so he eats it. Or my sister. I'm going to be a great parent :) Point is- stuffings are great for hiding food. Besides, this dish is absolutly to die for. Simple and pleasurable.  You can serve this as a snack at parties, or as a main dish. I'm drooling again, sorry, I do that sometimes when I'm hungry.


Type of dish: main, snack
Cost: medium
Difficulty: easy
Serves: 4-10
Time: 55min
Preparation time: 25min
Baking time: 30 min
Oven temp: 180C
What you need to prepare this dish:
2 large saucepans and 1 lid, spoon, collander, large shallow baking dish, knife, cutting board, large frying pan, spatula, medium bowl, hand blender.

Ingredients:

• 12-15 large pasta shells
• 250gr fresh spinach
• 1 can tomatos
• 1 cup ricotta cheese
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 medium onion
• a pinch of dried or fresh herbs: basil, oregano, parsley, thyme
• 1tsp sugar
• salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• olive oil
• 1 cup water
• optional: 1 egg

How to prepare:
Heat water in one of the pans, add a pinch od salt and 1 tbsp olive oil. When it boils, put in the pasta shells and cook acording to time on packet. Chop up the onion and garlic. Wash the spinach. Put ricotta cheese in the medium bowl. Heat up the other saucepan, add a tbsp of olive oil and fry the onion until translucent. Then, add the herbs and te tomatoes. Add sugar and a pinch of salt and pepper and water. Stir well and put lid on, turn the heat down to medium. Look in every few mionutes to give it a stir.  Heat up the frying pan on high heat, add a tbsp of olive oil and when hot, add the garlic. When it turns golden, remove from the pan and toss in half of the spinach. Mix around so it wilts, and when all is wilted, transfer to chopping board, and proceed with the other half of spinach. When thats done, the murky liquid should drip out, wipe that away or drain over the sink.  Cut the spinach with a sharp knife and mix with the ricotta. Heat the oven to 180C.  Now, if the pasta is cooked, drain and put in the baking dish, and drizzle olive oil over the shells. Look into the pot with the tomato sauce, the tomatoes should dissolve already, and take the hand blender now and blend away happily for 3-5 min. Back to the shells. Using a spoon, put in each shell a spoon full of the ricotta - spinach mixture. Arrange them in the baking dish with the open part side up. Pour over the tomato sauce and put in oven for 30 min to bake, checking every 10 min if it's not burning. After that time, you're ready to serve. Enjoy!

Additional info:
If you have some mozzarella, you can also place a slice of cheese on the top of the shells after filling, so a nice cheese cap forms after baking. Also, you can replace the spinach with fresh parley, chives, or a meat filling instead of cheese. The choice is yours!

Tortilla wraps snack bites

I needed some snack for my guests and I thought- why not some tortilla wraps? They're easy to make, delicious, and can be made ahead in time. Plus, they look lovely. Why not try this out?

Type of dish: starter

Cost: medium

Difficulty:  easy

Time:  15 min

Serves: 4-8

Preparation time: 15 min

What you need to make this dish:

Cutting board, 2 plates , sharp knife,  regular knife, cling film

Ingredients:

• 3 tortilla wraps
  
• 1 tomato
  
• 1 box of cream cheese of any kind
  
• salt and pepper
• 1/2 bell pepper
• 1/2 cucumber
• 3 slices of ham
• 6 lettuce leaves ( arrugula, lamb lettuce, crinkled lettuce or romain, any kind)

How to prepare:
Spread out some cling film, around 30 cm. Take a tortilla and bend it inside one way then the other. This way you'll see which way it's easier to fold so the tortilla doesn't break. Place it that foldable side up on the cling film. Take the cream cheese and spread it all over the tortilla, to the sides in a even layer. Cut the cucumber, pepper and tomato in slices. Remove the seeds from cucumber and tomato (if you don't your tortilla will get soggy.) Rip the lettuce leaves lengthwise and put them in the middle of the tortilla. On that, place the veggies , then fold a slice of ham on the veggies. Sprinkle some salt and pepper on top. Now start rolling the tortilla, so the stuff you just put on is tucked away in the tortilla blanket. Yum. Now fold the cling film over the tortilla so it doesn't unfold, and put in the fridge for 10- 15 min, or until you need to serve. Or just cut in 2-4 cm slices and serve straight away. Go for it!

Salty parmesan sticks

I was experimenting the other day with salty puff pastry sticks, and I thought the idea of adding some grated parmesan cheese to make it tastier. It's simple to make, you only have to spend more time rolling the pastry strips into twirls, but as you can see in the photo, it's doable. This is a snack great for starters or to serve with soup. We wanted to have this with the pumpkin soup we made, but by the time we got to eating, the girls had already whisked away most of the sticks. Seriously, if 2 and 5 year olds like stuff like this, it means it's good.

Type of dish: snack, appetizer, starter

Cost: medium

Difficulty:  medium

Time:  40 min

Serves: 6 people

Preparation time: 25 min

Baking Time: 15 min

Oven Temp: 180C

What you need to prepare this dish:
sharp knife, a grater, parchment paper, rolling pin

Ingredients:

• 1 pack puff pastry
• coarse salt
• parmesan

How to prepare:

Preheat the oven to 180 C. Roll out the puff pastry so it lays flat . Using the sharp knife carefull cut the pastry into 1cm stripes. Now, sprinkle the whole pastry with a pinch of salt and grate some parmesan. Take the rolling pin (or an empty wine bottle) and gently roll over the pastry, so the salt and parmesan is pressed onto the pastry. Now, take the last stripe and start twisting it over to form a pencil like twizller. Anyway, twist till the top and roll over to a piece of parchment paper. Proceed with the rest and place the paper in the oven, for 15 min. After that time, the sticks are ready, just let them cool for 5 min.

Additional information:
You can make these sticks with only salt and pepper, or just cheese, or add some cayenne pepper to them. In any version it's great.

Crunchy Caramelized Nuts

While I was writing in agony my thesis, I remembered hearing nuts are great for concentration and the brain in general. I was in desperate need for anything for my brain, and I was also craving sugar. (I sometimes have that). Then I remembered that I want something not only crunchy and sweet but also spicy, to get a kick out of it. So here’s how you make the yummy stuff.

Type of dish: dessert, snack

Cost: cheap

Difficulty:  easy

Time: 10min

Serves: 4

Preparation time: 0min

Cooking Time:5 min

Cooling time: 5 min

What you need to make this dish:

A small saucepan with a thick bottom, a wooden spoon, aluminum foil (or parchment paper)

Ingredients:

•          ¼ tsp. cayenne powder

•          Small grained salt

•          1 cup of any nuts

•        1 cup of brown sugar

How to prepare:

Turn the heat on the stove to high, place the saucepan on it , pour in the salt, sugar and cayenne powder, and the nuts. Aside the stove, put down the aluminum foil- this will be for cooling the nuts. And stir. Wait until the sugar starts melting, and when it does, act fast. Mix everything so the sugar syrup coats the nuts, then  pour out the nuts on the foil, trying to get them out in clumps, so they cool faster. You can additionally sprinkle some more salt on them now, while they’re still hot. Once they’ve cooled down, put in a bowl and let you taste buds and brain enjoy!

Additional information:

You can store these nuts in an air tight container up to 3 weeks, but remember to keep in a cool place. Also, if you're not a fan of chilli, you can leave it out like we did today and it was still great! Try it!