Lady Sandwiches – Aimed for Dainty (never really achieved)

The intention was to make these cucumber sandwiches dainty and ladylike.  An old family friend of ours, sadly now departed, used to make the most delicate cucumber sandwiches whenever we visited.  As you can see mine are not particularly delicate.  But I tried.

You just thinly butter some slices of white bread with your choice of spread.  (This is the only time I use white bread)

Then put a thin layer of thinly sliced cucumber on every second slice of bread.  It is important to peel the cucumber to get the right consistency.  Then sprinkle on salt and white pepper.  Pop the other slice of bread on top and press down a bit.

Cut off the crusts and then quarter each sandwich.  And if you manage to be more delicate than me you will have lovely tiny cucumber bites that are lovely and refreshing.

If you are preparing this a little ahead of time, keep the sandwiches cool in the fridge with a dampened tea towel over them (not plastic wrap).

Food on Friday: October 2019

It's the second Friday of the month so here is Food on Friday. 

As you can see, there are 3 new themes – Party Food, Pumpkin and BBQ.  I hope you'll find some great stuff in your archives to share.

Feel free to add a number of things under each category and come back later in the month to add more if you would like to.   

To add your dishes, just put the name of the dish together with your blog name/name into the first Mr Linky box you will find below.  Then paste the url for your post about it into the second box. Mr Linky now makes you tick a compliance box which I always forget first time!

I'll be pinning your creations to the relevant Pinboards – Party Food, Pumpkin and BBQ.

Have fun!

Smoked Salmon Mousse

I tried to do a bit of a fancy presentation of this Smoked Salmon Mousse.  It was only partially successful – getting the mousse into the little filo cups was very finicky and I ended up wasting quite a lot of mousse in my piping bag.  Next time I'll go a bit more rustic.

Ingredients:

Store bought filo cups

Smoked Salmon (peppered)

Cream

Cream Chees

Crème Fraiche

Lemon zest and juice

Gherkin

Dill

Salt

Method:

Mix the cream, cream cheese and crème fraiche until smooth.  I did it by hand after discovering my stick blender wasn't cutting it.

Add the chopped gherkin (you could use capers), chopped dill and a bit of salt together with the zest of half a lemon and about a teaspoon of lemon juice.  Stir.

Add your salmon – which you have flaked with a fork.  Mix this in leaving the salmon chunky.

Serve in filo cups or little savoury cornets to be fancy.

Warm Goat's Cheese

Warm Goat's Cheese isn't much of a recipe.  All you need is a bread stick (I used Tiger Bread), Extra Virgin Olive Oil and some goat's cheese.

Just cut off some rounds of bread.  Slosh olive oil onto each and crisp for 5 minutes or so in a moderate oven.  Then dollop goat's cheese on top of each one.  I had ½ a pottle of goat's cheese left over from doing my bacon wrapped dates and so I put it all on – a little less would have been better.

Put it back in the oven until the cheese is warm.

Pigs in Blankets – A Successful Experiment

My sister did these for us a few years ago and I got a notion to do them for Christmas this year.  The only trouble is I couldn't find any cheerio sized pork sausages...

Ingredients

Full sized pork sausages

Bacon – thin

Method:

I tied knots in my pork sausages with string and left it there while I pre-fried them.  I wanted the insides to firm up a bit so I could take the string off before doing the next stage.

Heat your oven to moderately hot.

Cut off the string. Wrap each partly cooked little sausage in part of a thin slice of bacon.  Wrap around 1 ½ times.  Secure with a toothpick with the overlap of bacon on the bottom.

Bake for about 20 minutes – keep checking til the bacon is done to a nice crispiness.  I put the oven fan on in the end.

Delicious just as they are – hot.  And also nice to eat the next day cold.