Recipe: Boursin, Parma Ham and Artichoke Bruschetta

This is another recipe I created for the Bel cheese academy, the most yummy Italian style starter, or perfect when you just fancy a light lunch or a quick bite to eat. You can use other types of cold cuts instead of parma, such as serrano ham or salami. To make it an even quicker lunch, you can use the chargrilled artichokes you get from delis instead of roasting your own. In this recipe, using normal boursin or boursin cuisine is fine, you dont need to make any adaptions.

Boursin, Parma Ham and Artichoke bruschetta (serves 5 as a starter)

For the artichokes:
1 in artichoke hearts, in water
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp garlic paste
½ tsp chilli flakes
Salt and pepper

For the bruschetta:

5 large slices ciabatta or tiger bread
Drizzle olive oil
100g boursin cuisine garlic and herb
5 slices Parma ham
50g mixed watercress and rocket salad
50g toasted walnuts

1. Drain and rinse the tinned artichokes, and cut into quarters. Mix the extra virgin olive oil and garlic paste together well. Place the artichokes on a non stick baking tray, cover in the garlic oil and sprinkle with salt, pepper and chilli flakes. Cook under a hot grill for about 10 minutes, or until slightly charred. Set aside.
2. Brush the slices of bread with olive oil and put under the grill for a couple of minutes, until toasted. Spread with boursin cuisine, and top each bruschetta evenly with the artichokes, parma ham, salad and walnuts. Serve!

Recipe: Gazpacho

For those of you that don't know, Gazpacho is a traditional spanish vegetable soup- that is served cold. Sounds like a strange dish, but it is absolutely delicious, healthy and refreshing. I served these as part of a canape night- had my first ever paid canape job the other day!! It was so exciting and I think everything went down really well. I was only left with 7 canapes after making 200 of them, so im guessing everyone liked the food. Nick made me some business cards too, I feel like a "real adult" now that I have business cards! This recipe works very well just as a bowl of soup,with some nachos on the side, not only just as canapes- when making it as a soup or starter, you dont need to add the water. The water is needed in the canape mix so that it's a thin enough texture to drink from the shot glasses.

Gazpacho (makes 40 shots)

Ingredients:

1/4 Red onion
1 Cucumber
500g Ripe Tomatoes
1 Clove of Garlic
1 red pepper
200ml tomato juice
200ml water
2 tbsp cider vinegar
2 tsp sugar
Lots of salt and black pepper to taste
Fresh basil for garnish

1. Roughly chop onions, cucumber, tomato and garlic. Deseed the pepper and roughly chop.
2. Place all of these ingredients in a blender, and blend until completely smooth. Since this recipe makes a lot, liquidise the ingredients in batches, depending on the size of the blender. You may need to add more water, add as much as you need until you have a “shot-drinkable” consistency.
3. Season to taste, and chill in the fridge for at least 20 minutes. Serve with some freshly chopped basil leaves.

Recipe: Sundried Tomato and Basil Frittatas

This is another canape recipe that I will be making for my friends birthday party next week, and it's a very quick and simple variety to make. I was surprised how much a lot of these "frittatas" rose, almost like souffles, but they settle down once you get them out of the muffin tin and onto a plate or tray. This recipe can also be a fantastic filling for a full-sized quiche.

Sundried tomato frittatas (makes about 36)

12 medium eggs
60g finely chopped sundried tomatoes
1 tsp dried basil
Black pepper and a little salt
Butter (for greasing)

1. Preheat the oven to 200C. In a mixing bowl whisk the eggs well. Add all other ingredients to the beaten egg.
2. Butter/ grease all the individual holes in two mini-muffin tins. Spoon the egg mixture 2/3rds into each hole (do not pour, as this will mean the later fritatas will have more sundried tomato than egg mixture, as the sundried tomato sinks to the bottom of the mix).
3. Bake in the oven for about 14 minutes, or until fully cooked. Plate and consume either hot or cold.

Recipe: Butternut Squash, Feta and Walnut Croustades

You'll be seeing a few more canape recipes from me in the next couple of weeks I reckon. I am doing 150 canapes professionally for a friend's birthday (first paid canape job! Very nervous!) so i've been needing to practice them before the big day. Will be doing 7 varieties- These croustades, goats cheese and red onion crostinis, cheddar and piccalili crostinis, curried chicken skewers with yoghurt dip, Gazpacho shots, chilli smoked salmon and coriander yoghurt on blinis and sundried tomato fritatas. You'll find croustades in that sorta "world" section in the supermarkets, where you get miso paste and other things like that. Within about 1/2 an hour the croustades start to soften instead of being crunchy, but theyre quite nice like that as well actually.

Butternut Squash, feta and walnut croustades (makes 24)

1 small-ish butternut squash
Olive oil, salt, sugar and pepper
honey (optional)
50g feta
20g walnuts
1 pack of 24 croustades

1. Roast the butternut squash in the oven until completely soft- 1 hour under foil, ½ an hour without, at 200C. Mash, season to taste (add honey if not sweet enough) and allow to cool.
2. Fill the croustades with the mashed butternut squash, add a small bit of feta and a chunk of walnut, and plate.

Recipe: Feta Filled Cherry Tomatoes

This is such a cute little canape recipe- I love it! I invented it when i was 8, I think when i started inventing dishes, it was all about party food for me- i wanted to make food that groups of my friends and family would really enjoy at social gatherings. I used to make delicious big jugs of non-alchoholic coctails as well. They were always so nice, and have never been able to make drinks (whether boozy or not!) as good as those ones back then. I think it was the large amounts of fresh mint i used to put in them from the garden, theres just something about fresh garden mint. Its different to shopbought.

Anyway, rabbiting on like usual- This is a recipe I am submitting to Love The Garden's new recipe competition "A Taste for Tomatoes". It's all about celebrating this wonderful fruit, and sending in our recipes that bring out the full flavour of our lovely toms! I think my favourite variety of the tomato is the cherry- they're lovely and sweet and crunchy, LOVELY. The salty feta here works very well with the sweetness of the tomato. The competition is judged by food blogger James Ramsden, and the prize is £200 at a meal of your choice. If any of you want to have a go at this recipe competition, or check out their website for growing tips, here's a link:

http://www.lovethegarden.com/blog/a-taste-for-tomatoes-a-recipe-blog-competition

Feta Filled Cherry Tomatoes

200g feta
A few slices red onion
50g peeled diced cucumber
2 tbsp chopped fresh coriander
2 tbsp chopped fresh mint
1 tsp lemon juice
Salt, sugar and pepper to taste
About 20 large cherry tomatoes
Optional: herbs for garnish

1. Slice a little hole in the top of each cherry tomato, and hollow out the centres of them.
2. Blend all the other ingredients in a food processor, and season to taste. If it is a little too thick, add some water.
3. Fill the hollowed out cherry tomatoes with the feta mixture, and arrange on a place in a circle. Garnish with herbs if you fancy it, and serve!

PS: The feta filling also makes a very nice dip!

Recipe: Butternut Squash and Paneer Pakoras

God, what a week! I'm so nackered, seriously. Got a hell of a lot of literature coursework to get through (still over 2000 words to write), got to cut down and 'tart up' my English Language coursework, and I still have a 2000 word screenplay to write for Film Studies. And all of this has to happen in the next couple of months. The literature one is the scariest though, I don't think I have ever written a 3000 word essay, that seems such a daunting amount. Still, has to be done. These appetisers/ canapes are absolutely divine! It takes a while to grate the squash and paneer for the mixture and roll all the balls up, but it's completely worth it. The dip I have presented them with, that you can see in the photo, is just some natural yoghurt mixed with some dukka, honey, a squeeze of lemon and a bit of black pepper.

Butternut squash and Paneer Pakoras (makes 24/25)

300g (peeled) grated butternut squash or pumpkin
300g finely grated paneer
50g very finely chopped red onion
½ tsp crushed ginger
1 green chilli, very finely diced
25g coriander, finely chopped
¼ tsp white pepper
40g white fresh breadcrumbs
½ tsp allspice
¼ tsp nutmeg
1 tsp salt
2 cardamom pods ground in a mortar and pestle
Little bit of cracked black pepper

1. Mix all the ingredients together well. Form the mixture in your palms into circles. You should weigh them and they should be between 25-30g. This helps them all cook in the same amount of time.
2. Heat a large saucepan full of vegetable/sunflower oil to a medium high heat. In batches, cook the pakoras for 2 minutes, until they turn a dark brown. Serve with a yoghurt dip of some sort.