Category Archives: Snacks

May 15, 2013

Birthday Party!

So, guess what?

You’re right, I have no way to know if you’re guessing or not, and this is a pointless exercise. But still, guess!

That’s right (she said, hearing your guess through the powers of the internet) – it’s my birthday today! Guess what else? Oh OK, we won’t go through that again – it’s my 30th birthday. I have been rocking around on this planet for 30 years and as I type, I’m swinging between casual acceptance, frank disbelief and what can only be described as stomach clenching panic, at a rather alarming rate.

The casual acceptance part is like ‘Yep, it’s just a number. Plus, life is awesome, and you’re not one of those people who’s set any kind of “life targets” that you now feel like you should scrimmage around and get accomplished in the next twenty minutes. Well done. Let’s party.’

The frank disbelief is like ‘Whaaaaaaaaat? I’m just getting started! It can’t possibly have been 30 years.’

The stomach clenching panic is like ‘DEATH IS COMING.’

So, now you know. Your humble writer is 30 years old on this very day, and as you read this she is probably doing some awesome bouldering. If you’re not familiar with it, bouldering is indoor climbing without ropes or helmets or any of that carry on. The G man and I started doing this in the last couple of months, and even though some weeks I’m really scared of climbing to the top of the walls and/or falling off while I’m doing it (which to be honest I think is probably natural, and I try not to give myself a hard time about it), most of the time I love it, and I feel like a spider monkey. The best parts are where you lose your footing and haul yourself back up with your arms – that makes a person feel BADASS, no doubt about it. I’m already getting people to prod the new muscles in my forearms, which I am disproportionately proud of.

Anyway, that is part of my birthday plan. The whole picture looks like this:

10am or thereabouts: wake up without the aid of an alarm clock and relish being at home, in bed, on a work day.

11am: have a long, leisurely shower. Sing ‘Caledonia’, ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’ and ‘Life on Mars’ at top of lungs. Sing any other songs that pop into head, also at top of lungs.

12 noon – 1pm: climb to the top of walls and jump back down again like bouldering rock star legend.

2pm: arrive at astonishingly awesome parents’ house, where astonishingly awesome siblings will also be arriving forthwith. Drink bourbon. Laugh until face hurts. Eat food that I have had no hand in preparing, and will have no hand in cleaning up after. Possibly play enthusiastic if amateurish guitar and sing at top of lungs some more.

11pm: arrive back at my flat, escorted by ever-patient G man. Watch a film with dinosaurs or aliens in it. Sleep the sleep of the just.

Doesn’t that sound great?

While I’m off doing that, I thought I’d give you some birthday party pictures to peruse. The week before last, I threw a birthday party for my beloved Thursday Sister Miss Pig. We had banners, paper plates, wine and more snacks than you could shake a stick at – the works. I took a whole bunch of photos, and today I’d like to share them all with you – after this big bunch of words at the top of the post, you deserve them.

Things started off very civilised.

I made some exciting things for us to eat. First of all, blue cheese and walnut sandwich cracker guys:

The recipe for these is here – Stilton and Walnut Crackers. I Scottished it up by using Strathdon Blue for the crackers, and the filling was some Skinny Crowdie with a splash of cream, a sprinkling of blue cheese and some minced spring onion. Delicious.

Then, sticking with the cheese theme, I made these Homemade Goldfish Crackers.

I used a sharp Cornish Cruncher cheese for these – this cheese is great just on its own, but adds a mega flavour boost to the crackers. They didn’t turn out as crunchy as goldfish crackers, instead being more puffy and pastry-ish, but they hit the spot. I also make them in heart and flower shapes, because those are the shapes that Miss Pig likes (and because I don’t have a fish shaped cutter, of course).

The last savoury joy was these sourdough grissini, of which I was extraordinarily proud. They earned me a proposal of sorts when I took the leftovers into work – that good. My sourdough starter Louie is still going strong, almost 18 months on. He did me proud.

There are three kinds of breadstick there – sesame seed, poppy seed and salt, pepper, garlic, chili and fennel. Oh yes. Add a bit of humus and you’re golden. You can find the recipe for Sourdough Grissini on YeastSpotting.

I also made some sweet items for us. First up, a batch of brigadeiros, which you can read a blog post about here. The original recipe is here.

They’re fudgy, chocolatey truffles, which are so much lighter than your usual chocolate truffle while still delivering a rich flavour. They’re a little trickier and more time consuming to make than normal truffles, too, but worth the effort. People make a face when they eat these – a GOOD face.

Next I made some little tartlets which I’m struggling to name – they’re somewhere between jam tarts and meringue pies, except the meringue is soft, more like marshmallow. This is because I freestyled it, by whipping up an unspecified amount of egg white with enough sugar to make a glossy meringue that stood up in peaks. I eyeballed it, and then piped it over the baked jam tarts and used my cook’s blowtorch to cook and colour the surface of them. Then I sort of looked away when someone took the first bite out of one in case the marshmalloweringue exploded everywhere, instantly sticking everything in the room to everything else in the room. When there were no cries of alarm I looked back – turns out that they were soft and pillowy but not excessively sticky and definitely not explosive. Phew – bullet dodged.

The other great thing about these is that they represent my first successful attempt at wheat free pastry – are you excited about this? Because I *definitely* am. I’ll blog it properly on my next attempt, but for now suffice to say it was light and crisp and did not crumble into ash in our mouths, which is always the fear when you make wheat free pastry and biscuits. Also I made the tartlets flower-shaped, and I loved the end result. They’re so pretty! The jam was rhubarb and ginger, from a jar (shoosh, I made the pastry, what more do you want? Jam on it? Oh…).

The piece de resistance was these wee pig cupcakes, which were inspired by an idea in the book Cupcakes, Cookies and Pie – Oh My!

Check out the colour difference in those photos. THE LEVELS! MY EYES!

The ears and noses are mini marshmallows – to do the ears you snip some marshmallows diagonally to form those sweet wee triangles, and then you wedge them into the icing. The cakes are Devil’s Food Cake (my go-to chocolate cake recipe) and the icing is a vanilla buttercream, tinted pink. The eyes are reversed chocolate chips, and the smiles are drawn on with an icing pen after the icing has set a little.

I was heard to remark that I thought they looked a bit like I made them at nursery – I still feel that way. It’s not a criticism, necessarily, but they do look like a project you might do with your kids. However, given that I don’t have any of those, I get to do this fun stuff myself. Miss Pig, as her name suggests, likes pigs – when I happened across the pigs idea in that book, it was a no-brainer.

The night progressed in the way that these nights do…

Wine was consumed…

Sparklers were lit…

Things were knocked over…

We laughed, and listened to 80s tunes, and ate until we couldn’t eat any more. We took photographs of all the food with our phones:

It was a simply lovely party. When everyone went home I had a one-woman dance party round my flat until it was really silly late – and when I say dance party, I really mean it. That thing about dancing like nobody’s watching? That.

Looking over these photos and writing this post was an absolute joy – it’s been a long while since I took on a big kitchen project like this, and having everything work out so successfully was reassuring and pleasing in equal measures.

So, while I’m off enjoying my birthday (30? Really??), I hope you’ve enjoyed checking out our birthday party. I can recommend throwing one, complete with paper cups and a disposable tablecloth. You’ll have a great time.

Baking to excess is optional.

16 comments | tags: birthday cake, birthday party, party food, pigs | posted in Bread, Cake, Chocolates, Confectionery, Dessert, Other people's recipes, Pastry, Snacks

May 8, 2013

Mothers Day High Tea 2013 (and Devilled Quails Eggs)

By Rock Salt

Before I give anyone in the UK a panic attack, this post is late, late, LATE. To those in the US, it is just in time. Everyone else, I have no idea…

I hereby sentence myself to five hundred lines for blogging lateness. Except they’ll have to wait until I’ve written all the other stuff I’ve got lined up, and the delay caused by this will probably incur a further set of lines, which will have to wait… Hm. Perhaps I will be lenient with myself instead.

Anyway, Mothers Day here in the UK (and possibly in other countries) is in March. In our family, we have started a tradition of having a special afternoon or high tea to celebrate – you can see 2011′s here and here and 2012′s here.

I still don’t know where to put the apostrophe. IT’S A DAY OF MOTHERS, OK?

Here is a picture of our table from this year:

We got out the special china again, and proper cloth napkins, and we feasted.

Now, last year I made a big fuss of the devilled eggs, and said I was going to make them loads and bring them back and eat them all the time. This didn’t happen. I didn’t make one single devilled egg until it was time for the next high tea, a year later. I decided to make them a wee bit different, though, and try quails eggs (no apostrophe here, either).

Quails eggs are delicious – I want to get that straight right now. If you get the chance to try them, definitely go for it. I can take or leave a duck egg, but these little blighters are on another level. They are also a bit more work, being smaller and fiddlier (not in the musical sense), but worth it.

Even though that picture is too dark, I really like it. Something about looking at all those freshly-peeled eggs was very satisfying. I tried lightening it and it lost some of its personality. Quails eggs have personality, people. You heard it here first.

Also, the shells are a beautiful colour inside, a really pretty pale blue. I have almost convinced myself that the eggs themselves have a hint, just a tinge, of this blue about them, too. Really, it is lovely to look at.

I used the same recipe to make the devilled quails eggs as I did with the normal eggs last year – mustard, vinegar, minced spring onion, mayonnaise, salt and pepper combine with the egg yolks to make a creamy, savoury, tart filling the you can then pipe back into the hollowed out egg white. Then you sprinkle a bit of paprika over the top – retro is in, you know.

Here they are in their finished form:

Yes, it is more work to make devilled quails eggs, but they were perfect picnic-style food, and tasted perhaps even better than normal devilled eggs.

There was a whole host of other food on offer, of course. Here’s a wee peek at all the different items on the table:

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Miss J (that’s my sister) and I made all the bits and pieces between us – she was responsible for the cream cheese and fruit parcels, which were like superior mince pies, the bagels and the scones – we served the scones with butter, jam and clotted cream, of course. I pitched in with the eggs, heart-shaped mini sponges, caprese skewers with added salami and fairy cakes. It was nice to make a fairy cake instead of a cupcake, for a change, and I loved the little sugar diamonds and pearls! I thought they were suitably pretty for a mum who likes bling and sparkles.

All in all, we had another lovely day, and drank fizzy wine from the china cups, with cocktail umbrellas because I’m really into cocktail umbrellas at the minute. Once you start, it’s hard to stop.

Love you, mum!

5 comments | tags: Mothers Day, party food, picnic | posted in Cake, Snacks

April 24, 2013

Easy Fig Treats

By Rock Salt

You know what is easier than writing a blog post about making these crunchy, chewy fig treats? Only one thing – making them.

Alright I suppose that technically NOT making them or writing a blog post about them would be easier. No need to be a spoilsport.

First, buy dried figs and dessicated coconut. Those are the only two ingredients, which is more than you can say for most snacks. Next, throw the figs into a food processor. Make sure to take out any stems – I didn’t do this the first time, not realising that ‘ready to eat’ actually meant ‘not really ready to eat until you’ve gone through and removed any stems’, and while it doesn’t stop you enjoying the snacks it is a bit of a pain – like watermelon seeds are, you know? If you’re home alone, especially home alone in a house with a porch, rocking chair and back garden, you could just spit them out, giving yourself points for distance, but otherwise I’d suggest just taking them out of the equation altogether.

Process the figs until you get a thick, sticky paste, like this:

Appetising, no?

OK, no – net YET. In fact it looks a little like a Golgothan. But we won’t talk about that.

Next, sprinkle a surface with coconut – you can toast the coconut if you prefer, though it does add an extra step. Scoop the fig paste into small portions; if you have a tiny scoop, great. If not, get all lo-fi and just use your hands. Roll the paste into a ball, then roll in the coconut to cover. You’re done!

Before you know it you’ll have rows of the beauties, like this:

Now wash your hands, cos they’ll be covered in fig paste.

I dare say you could add to these – some dates in with the figs might be good, or a splash of vanilla extract, or what about a big spoonful of cocoa powder? The fruit is naturally very sweet, and they have a great crackly texture from the seeds that is really satisfying, though you do run the risk of finding them in your teeth hours later. This is a snack that keeps on giving… They are chewy and a bit fudgey at room temperature – I stored some of mine that way for a week and they were still good. I figured, dried figs don’t need to be refrigerated, they should still be fine after they’re processed, right? If you’re not sure, or prefer a firmer texture, you can always keep them in the fridge.

It seems to me that these would be a good stand-by snack, and they’re probably pretty ace for an energy boost what with the natural sugar in the figs. They also count towards your five a day – two dried figs is one portion, so depending what size you make the treats you only need one or two to count towards your optimum fruit and veg intake.

These treats are raw, free from the most common allergens (nut, wheat, dairy, soy and egg, to name but five), contain only natural ingredients, are vegan friendly and take less than ten minutes to make. What are you waiting for?

5 comments | tags: figs, natural, paleo, raw | posted in Confectionery, Dairy free, Gluten free, Healthy, Original recipes, Snacks, Vegan, Vegetarian

March 27, 2013

Avocado Sandwich Spread (and the Penultimate Sandwich)

By Rock Salt

I saw a post on Lucy’s Friendly Foods the other day, where she mentioned her avocado mayonnaise. For some reason, the idea of avocado mayonnaise wouldn’t go out of my head, then, so I had to make my own and slather it on a giant sandwich. At least, the sandwich was giant in my mind… In reality, it seemed not to be a day for bread baking (I blame the position of the moon) and so the rolls I was making didn’t turn out as tall and proud as I’d imagined. However, I still made a sandwich of reasonable proportions – and the avocado mayo was absolutely delicious.

I changed things up and made more of a spread than a mayo. I also made it on the chopping board, rather than in a food processor, blender or even bowl, and I’m really pleased with how that worked out. You see Jamie Oliver making stuff right on the chopping board a lot, so I felt quite fancy as I was working on it. This is probably the main benefit of preparing the avocado spread this way; the secondary bonus is that you don’t have any extra dishes to wash, which to me is a big deal. Washing the dishes is pretty low on my list of priorities, and these days that’s one looooooong list!

So, to the avocado spread. I will preface this by saying that I love a good guacamole, and have a go-to, memorised in my brain recipe for it (which I once wrote about here), but fancied doing something different with avocado, for a change. This was the end result:

1 small avocado
juice of 1/2 small lime
1/8 – 1/4 tsp dijon mustard
big pinch of sea salt
several turns of black pepper
splash white wine vinegar
dash of cold-pressed rapeseed oil (optional)
dash paprika or cayenne pepper (optional)

First, peel the avocado and roughly chop. Don’t throw the stone away.

Add the lime juice, mustard, salt and pepper and vinegar, then MASH TO A PULP with your knife. You may also want to employ a fork. Do wear goggles lest you get mustard in your eye, in your fervent mashing state.

When very mashed, add a drizzle of oil, if you like – avocado is so rich already you might not want it, but it does add a certain unctuousness, and if nothing else it’s nice to have a valid reason to use that word.

Continue mashing and mixing, with fork or knife as you prefer, until you reach your desired consistency. I preferred it with some texture remaining but Lucy has hers completely smooth – depends on preference and how long you’re willing to mash for, really. Taste the spread and add more seasoning and a tiny hint of cayenne or paprika, if you like.

Now, you will be looking at your chopping board (and possibly hands) and going ‘urgh, look, there’s avocado everywhere’. Well, firstly, wash your hands (this should be self evident). As for the chopping board, fear not! Simply scrape up all the dressing, in two or three goes, with your knife, scooping it up onto the blade horizontally and then turning the knife vertically to drop the spread into a suitable container. This means you won’t drop any round the edges of the container, and you’ll scrape up almost every last drop from the board.

See?

To preserve any leftover spread for a day or two (this works a bit, though not perfectly), put the avocado stone in the bowl you’re storing it in, make sure it’s tightly covered, and refrigerate. The avocado will still go a bit grey but not as much as if you’d left the stone out, and the flavour is still good. Just eat with your eyes closed.

To go with this spread (or, for the spread to go with), I had envisaged The Ultimate Sandwich – ultimate for that moment of imagining, anyway. It was more or less this Dutch Crunch sandwich from last year but with added avocado, and I looked forward to it for a couple of days. Alas, when it came to making the bread, a few things went a little wrong, and while I still ended up with edible rolls, they weren’t the crackled beauties I had in mind.

James R suggested on Facebook that this might be the Penultimate Sandwich, which was ominous but stuck in my head, nonetheless…

I layered up pea shoots, tomato, strong Campbeltown cheddar, turkey breast and avocado spread on my servicable-if-not-perfect white roll, and it was almost everything I’d been dreaming of. It’s always disappointing when something doesn’t turn out as you hope – especially when you’ve invested a lot of time in it – but it’s best to appreciate it for itself, really.

After all, it might be the second last sandwich you ever eat.

8 comments | tags: avocado, sandwich, turkey | posted in Condiments, Dairy free, Gluten free, Original recipes, Other people's recipes, Snacks, Vegan, Vegetarian

March 20, 2013

St Patrick’s Day Snacks!

By Rock Salt

There are so many fun recipes around for things to make on St Patrick’s Day – mostly unusually and improbably green things, it must be said. I don’t usually celebrate or make anything special, but this year two friends asked me if I was doing anything, so I took it as a Sign and had them both over the flat for some drinks and snacks.

I wanted to make green snacks, but without employing any food colouring. It turns out that naturally green food doesn’t always stay very green after you process it in some way, so I had varying degrees of success in this endeavour. Here are some snaps I took:

Feta, cucumber and mint skewers. Pretty simple.

Spinach and pea quiche, with thyme crust.

I sort of made this one up. I followed the crust recipe from this mushroom quiche - a very forgiving recipe, as it turns out, since I ended up seriously manhandling the dough with my hot hands and it was still light and crumbly in the end.

The filling was a mix of defrosted spinach and peas, salt and pepper, a splash of milk (I only had a splash left in the carton) and an assortment of whole eggs and egg yolks. There was a lot left over, which I baked in a dish as little crustless quiche bites.

Mini soda breads (not green).

Broad bean dip.

Parsley hummus.

This is a simple food processor dip – a tin of chickpeas, a bunch of parsley, a clove of garlic get whizzed round with a drizzle of sesame oil, then seasoned to taste. To adjust the texture, I added water from the chickpea tin until it was scoopable.

The soda bread was great with either dip, or with some butter sprinkled with smoked sea salt.

Ricotta gnocchi with pesto.

I followed this recipe from Delicious Days, for fifteen minute ricotta gnocchi. I kid you not, it was so easy, genuinely taking less than fifteen minutes even though it was the first time I’d tried the recipe. Sometimes a new recipe takes longer because you’re checking it at every step, but not this one. For a start, there aren’t that many steps to check. For another, it really is that simple – mix the ingredients in the bowl, roll out, slice, boil.

I made the dough ahead of time, only leaving the shaping and boiling until just before serving. Even after sitting in the fridge for several hours, it was light and soft when it was cooked, and tasted amazing even on its own. To serve, I mixed with a drizzle of olive oil and a huge mound of fresh pesto.

If you haven’t made pesto before, I’d say it’s time to give it a try. Another food processor classic; I started with a handful of hazelnuts and two garlic cloves, which I whizzed up until the nuts were finely chopped. Then I added two basil plants and some pecorino, followed by enough olive oil to make a smooth paste. Season with salt and pepper and we’re done!

Lime-oncello (disappointingly not green).

This was the same method as my successful limoncello, but with lime rind instead of lemon, and more sugar syrup to balance the more bitter taste. It didn’t turn out nearly as green as I’d hoped, as you can see!

We also made an as-yet un-named and unperfected cocktail. It contained lime-oncello, vodka, gin, simple syrup, fresh kiwi juice and a squeeze of lime. We had it both short and topped up with soda, and it was pretty awesome either way.

I also made these non-green bonus marshmallow pies. Now, the trouble with these is that they were born of a total recipe failure. I tried to make green tea marshmallows using veggie gelatin, and oh boy, did that not work… So I used the resulting gooey, sticky not-marshmallow (which was liquid at room temperature) to fill little pate sucree shells, using the recipe from these jam tarts. This is my go-to sweet pastry, it works perfectly every times. I baked the tarts up, keeping an eye out for the not-marshmallow burning, and ended up with these lovely little things, which were a bit crispy on the top and chewy in the middle. And no longer even a tiny bit green.

Can’t win ‘em all, right?

7 comments | tags: buffet, green food, St Patrick's Day | posted in Bread, Drinks, Irish food, Italian food, Original recipes, Other people's recipes, Pastry, Snacks, Vegetarian

Rock Salt

Category Archives: Snacks

Birthday Party!

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Mothers Day High Tea 2013 (and Devilled Quails Eggs)

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Easy Fig Treats

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Avocado Sandwich Spread (and the Penultimate Sandwich)

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St Patrick’s Day Snacks!

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