A few Nibbles for New Years

   

We did a One Night in Bethlehem activity at our chapel prior to Christmas.   We tried to serve all biblical or middle eastern foods . . .  finger foods, foods that would make great nibbles for the New Year's Eve Buffet table.

  

I made this lovely feta dip, which was really delicious and tangy and so simple to make.  It is basically just feta cheese, olive oil, thyme and lemon zest and juice blitzed until smooth in the food processor or blender.   Very simple really.  

  

It was absolutely wonderful!   It was nice served with vegetables for dipping and crackers for spreading.  You want something crisp to go with the smooth richeness of this dip.   It went down a real treat.  

*Creamy Feta Dip*

Makes about 2 cups

Printable Recipe  

Creamy, sharp and herby.   Goes well with toasted pita chips, raw vegetables, crackers.   Quick and easy to make. 

400g feta cheese (1 3/4 cups)

125ml of extra virgin olive oil (1/2 cup)

1 fat clove of garlic, peeled

the finely grated zest of two unwaxed lemons

the juice of two lemons

fine sea salt and cracked black pepper to taste

a few springs of fresh thyme 

To finish:
a drizzle of olive oil
a few thyme leaves  

  

Place all of the ingredients into a blender and blitz until smooth.  Cover and chill until needed.  Place into a serving bowl.  Drlzzle the top with some extra virgin olive oil and sprinkle with a few thyme leaves.  



I also made these lovely little Lamb Kofta Meatballs.  Spicy and just wonderful served with some pita breads and Tzatziki for dipping.    You could fry them if you wanted to, but I just bake them in the oven because they brown nicely, evenly and as lamb is a rather fatty meat anyways it helps to cut down on some of that extra fat.

*Kofta Meatballs*
Makes about 20

Printable Recipe  

Moist and spicy.  Serve with some Tzatziki sauce for dipping.  (Your own or purchased) 

2 pounds lean ground lamb

1 medium onion, peeled and finely minced

1/2 bunch of fresh flat leaf parsely, finely chopped

1 TBS ground cumin

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground allspice

fine sea salt and fine black pepper to taste 

Preheat the oven to 200*C/400*F/gas mark 6.   Have ready several rimmed baking sheets.  Place the cumin, cinnamon and allspice into a dry frying pan.  Cook over medium heat until very fragrant.  Remove from the heat and allow to cool. 

Crumble the meat into a bowl.   Add the chopped onion, parsley and cooled spices.   Season with salt and pepper.  (If you wish you may cook a small bit of this in the frying pan and taste it to see if you have seasoned it correctly.)   Shape the mixture into 1 1/2 inch balls and place them evenly spaced on the baking trays.  Bake in the heated oven for 25 to 30 minutes until nicely browned and cooked through.  Serve warm or at room temperature with sauce for dipping if desired.  

Note: These are also nice served hot and tucked into warm Pita Breads with some lettuce and sauce. 

Happy New Year!  Have fun and stay safe!

A Trio of Nifty Appetizers for the Holidays

I do get sent the neatest things.  I was recently sent a variety of really nice appetizer pastries to use for the holidays.



Pidy UK have recently launched a selection of their deliciously famous canapés for the retail market, the range contains a combination of their most unique and interesting shaped pastry vol-au-vents. All the products are made with their award winning pastry recipe that the Pidy family initially created in their little patisserie shop in Ypres, Belgium back in 1952.

Pidy is an innovative Belgian family food business established in the world of ready to fill pastry products. Pidy are a world leader in dry puff pastry and also competitive in short crust, fonçage dough, choux pastry and sponge cakes. With three production units in Belgium, France and the USA,  Pidy are able to offer the perfect day to day service and market support to their customers in more than 50 countries world wide. Pidy supply a range of products to the foodservice and retail industry which includes chefs, restaurants, cafes, bakery, patisserie, catering, retail and cash and carry.




First up are these delightful little spoon shaped pastries.  They came 12 in the pack and were just the right size for one tasty little bite.    I created a Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato filling for them, which turned out really nice.  The cups were crisp and just the perfect texture to go with the filling with no apparent outstanding flavors that would detract from whatever you put into them.  They worked out very well.

*Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato Spread*

16 servings

Printable Recipe

Don't fill your little cups until just before serving so that they stay nice and crisp.  Delicious.  All the flavors of your favourite sandwich in a small bite!  You can make the mayonnaise mixture ahead of time, as well as preparing your other ingredients and then just put them together at the last minute.

110g mayonnaise (1/2 cup)

1 (250g) package of cream cheese (8 ounces)

1 tsp coarsely ground black pepper

a couple of lettuce leaves, finely shredded

4 slices of streaky smoked bacon, cooked crisp and then crumbled

1 small tomato, de-seeded and chopped.

1 spring onion, trimmed and finely sliced

40g strong cheddar cheese, grated (1/3 cup)

16 crisp appetizer cups

Stir the mayonnaise, cream cheese and black pepper together.  Spoon an equal portion of this mixture into the bottom of each cup.  Top each with some lettuce, chopped bacon, chopped tomato, spring onion and cheese.  Serve immediately.

Alternately you can layer this in a nice shallow bowl for dipping or spreading on crackers, leaving out the appetizer cups.



They also have a line of veggie pastry cups. These ones were shaped like little flower baskets and were a lovely pink/red colour.  Again there was no real jarring flavour from the cups.  They went very well with the pizza type filling I created for them.

Pidy’s newest retail range the Veggie cups are available in four flavours beetroot, carrot, spinach and celeriac and come in packs of 12. The four flavours capture the true nature, colour and essence of the vegetables as they are made with 30% real vegetable juice extract and no E numbers or artificial colours. The canapés are also made with Pâté à Foncer dough which is lighter and contains 50% less fat than standard pastry.

Again, they were very crisp and the shape and color made for a very pretty little presentation.

 

*Pizza Cups*

Makes 16

Printable Recipe  

Tasty little morsels that taste just like pizza.  Tasty one bites.  Don't fill your cups until the last minute so that they stay crisp.  You can make the spread, and chop the other ingredients and have them ready to throw together quickly when you are ready to serve.

110g of sour cream (1/2 cup)

1/2 250g package of cream cheese (4 ounces)

1/2 tsp dried oregano

1/2 tsp dried basil

1/4 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp black pepper

1 small pepperoni stick chopped coarsely

several lettuce leaves, shredded

half a dozen cured pitted black olives chopped

1 small tomato, de-seeded and  chopped

2 sun dried tomato halves, chopped

2 TBS finely chopped red onion

45g of coarsely grated Parmesan cheese (1/4 cup)

16 crisp appetizer cups

Stir together the sour cream, cream cheese, oregano, basil, garlic powder, salt and black pepper.   Spoon an equal portion of this into each of the appetizer cups.  Mix together the chopped pepperoni, olives, lettuce, tomatoes, red onions and sun dried tomatoes.  Sprinkle an equal portion over each cup.  Top each with a bit of Parmesan cheese and serve immediately.

Alternately this can be spread into a shallow dish and layered like a dip and served with crisp bread sticks or crackers.  I would double the amounts in this case.



Finally I was sent these Vol-au-Vents Pastries.  Crisp puff pastry shells, perfectly baked and waiting for me to fill them with my chosen filling.   These were the perfect size for a first course and so I created a tasty spinach, cranberry, red onion and blue cheese filling to serve in them. 

 

*Cranberry, Spinach and Blue Cheese Puffs*

Serves 8 as a first course

Printable Recipe  

Deliciously different first course for the holidays. Pretty to look at and quite delicious!

8 puff pastry vol aux vent pastries, thawed and baked

2 TBS butter

1 small red onion, peeled and finely chopped

a bag fresh baby spinach leaves, washed and chopped (3 cups loosely packed)

75g of chopped sweetened dried cranberries (1/2 cup)

115g of blue cheese, crumbled (1/2 cup)

salt and coarsely ground black pepper



Place the baked vol aux vents on a baking sheet.   Preheat the oven to 200*C/400*F/ gas mark 6.

Melt the butter in a large skillet.  Add the red onions and cook, stirring over medium heat until softened.  Begin adding the spinach a handful at a time, cooking just to wilt.  Stir in the dried cranberries and heat through.  Season to taste with salt and coarsely ground black pepper.  Divide the mixture equally amongst the pastry cups.  Top each with an equal portion of the blue cheese crumbles.  Pop into the oven to heat through and melt the cheese.  Serve immediately.



Pidy manufacture a huge variety of products, including savoury pastries for main course, sweet pastry cases, dessert products, canapés and ready to fill pastries. For further details go to their website or follow them on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest.

You can buy these fab products on Amazon.uk as well as in select farm and garden shops throughout the UK.

Many thanks to food PR agency CLIP Creative and PR for the samples.

French Onion Dip and Divo Italian Parmigiano Reggiano PDO Extra Cheese

Divo Italiano recently sent me a delicious assortment of exciting new Italian Cheeses to try out. These are thorougly modern cheeses selected by Aldo Zilli specifically for the British Table.  They are available in five different varieties and I could not wait to get stuck in.  First out of the starting gate was a cheese that I use frequently in my kitchen . . . Italian Parmigiao Reggiano P D O Extra.

 

Crunchy & crumbly texture, matured for a minimum of 24 months for a sweet & salty taste.  I loved it.  I just adore Parmesan cheese anyways, and this was exceptional in flavour.   Parmesan cheese was the one cheese I did eat outside of processed cheese when I was growing up . . . ok, so it was the stuff that came in the green cylinder from Kraft that you could keep on the shelf without refrigerating, but that was quite bold as far as I was concerned.   I am happy to say that my tastes have really advanced since then!  This was a lovely cheese.  It was rich and crumbly and had a beautiful flavour.

I decided to use some of it in our favourite French Onion Dip.

 

This is a dip that comes in incredibly handy during the holidays when people are doing a lot of entertaining.  Sure, you could just crack open a package of dry French Onion Soup mix, and it would taste alright . . . but trust me when I say . . . ONCE YOU TASTE THIS DIP YOU WILL NEVER SETTLE FOR A PACKAGE MIX DIP AGAIN!



Please excuse me for yelling, but I can't re-iterate enough just how gorgeous this dip is.  It has all of the flavours of a good onion soup . . . sweetly caramelized onions . . . cooked slowly in butter and oil until they are golden delish . . . some spice and tang . . . sour cream . . . mayonnaise . . . and a good Parmesan cheese, which is the real star of the dip along with those beautiful onions.



The Divo Italian Parmigiano Reggiano was perfect in this dip.   It was lovely and rich and in short . . . perfect.  I do hope you will give it a try, and I just know you will agree with me when I say . . . this is the best!

*French Onion Dip*
Makes about 3 1/2 cups  

Printable Recipe  

This beats the heck out of anything that comes pre-prepared or out of a package hands down!  We love this and so do our guests, especially around the holidays!  Great with crisps, crackers and vegetables!  

2 TBS sunflower oil

2 TBS butter

2 large onions, peeled and finely diced

240g of dairy sour cream (2 cups)

(You can also use low fat creme fraiche
with no visible taste difference)

20g of good quality mayonnaise (1 cup)

(you can use low fat with no problems)

45g of finely grated Parmesan Reggiano Cheese (1/4 cup)

1 tsp caster sugar

1 tsp celery salt

1 tsp finely ground black pepper

1/4 tsp garlic powder (not salt)

1 tsp Worcestershire Sauce

additional salt to taste    

Het the oil and butter  in a large skillet over medium heat.  Once the butter is melted, add the onions and sugar.   Cook, stirring from time to time, until golden brown and caramelized.  Make sure that they don't burn.  You just want them a medium to darkish caramel colour.   I usually turn my heat down to low once they get going and do keep an eye on them.  Frequent stirring is the key to preventing them from catching.  This could take anywhere between 25 to 35 minutes.  Once they are completely caramelized remove them from the heat and allow to cool completely to room temperature.  

Whisk the sour cream, mayonnaise, cheese, celery salt, black pepper, garlic powder and Worcestershire sauce together to combine well.  Taste and adjust seasoning as necessary.  Stir in the onion mixture.  Cover and chill for at least one hour, but preferably overnight.  Serve chilled with your preferred dippers!

Divo Italian Parmigiano Reggiano P.D.O. Extra Cheese:

Gold and Bronze award winner at the South West Cheese Awards 2013, this Parmigiano Reggiano P.D.O. is graded for quality twice by the Parmigiano Reggiano Consortium before it is selected by Aldo Zilli, to give it the prestigious ‘Extra’ status.

A crunchy and crumbly texture with fruity and nutty flavours, it is matured for at least 24 months from selected mountain dairies where the cattle graze on the lush high pastures and their milk gives this Parmigiano Reggiano outstanding flavour.

This delicious cheese is ideal served grated or shaved on salads, soups, or simply broken off in chunks and eaten on its own with balsamic vinegar. 

To find out more about these lovely cheeses in the Divo Line click HERE.
Find the DIVO range in Morrisons and online at Ocado.

Many thanks to Divo for sending me these lovely cheeses.  Look for more about the other cheeses I was sent soon!