Easy Creamy Fetta dip

 

This dip was great served as a side with the Spicy Garlic Chicken Wings. It would be equally tasty with crudites or chips for a party. Be careful with the salt as not all fettas are made equally. Mine was a very mild variety so the addition of a little bit of salt lifted the flavour of the dish.



Creamy Fetta Dip
Serves 4-6


50 g Fetta, grated (hard not creamy variety)
2/3 cup sour cream
2 tbsp Greek yoghurt
3 tsp milk
Pinch of salt
Pepper

1. Grate the fetta into a bowl.


2. Add sour cream and greek yoghurt and mix well, adding an extra tablespon of yoghurt if needed. Use the milk to thin the dip.


3. Add salt and a pinch of pepper to taste.

Budget midweek dinner: Spicy Garlic Chicken Wings

 

This inexpensive chicken dish is lovely served cold or warm. The first time I made it was for our moving in party as part of a nibbles buffet, but it is equally yummy as a midweek summer dinner with salad. Chicken wings were about $1.70 a kilo and I got the butcher to take off the wing tips and make them into wings and drummettes.



I have modified the original recipe from Valli Little slightly, using less allspice as it was a bit too overpowering. I have also added salt as the original recipe was spicy but with no oomph and I used less Cayenne pepper because N doesn´t like his food hot. A bit of a warning - if you´re not a fan of garlic this recipe isn´t for you.


Spicy Garlic Chicken WingsServes 4 for dinner


1 1/4 tsp Allspice
1/4 tsp ground Cloves
1/4 tsp Cayenne Pepper (add full tsp if you like it hot)
1 tbsp sweet paprika
4 garlic cloves
1/4 cup olive oil
Salt (about 3/4 tsp)
12 fat and juicy chicken wings and drummettes


1. Grate garlic with a microplane grater into a bowl, add spices, oil and a generous amount of salt to taste.


2. Place chicken in the bowl and bowl and make sure the pieces are covered. Marinate in the fridge for 4 hours or overnight.


3. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius and line a baking trays with baking paper.


4. Spread the wings and drummettes on the tray and bake for 25 minutes until golden and cooked through. Serve warm or cold 

Lemon and coriander hummus

Lemon and coriander hummus

Seriously, what is it with the spelling of this dish. I´ve seen so many different versions, in the end I just decided to chose one - Hummus - and leave it at that. My rant aside, here´s a rave. I absolutely love hummus, but it´s one of those dishes that can feel a bit uninspired and cheap at times. When I saw a recipe for a version with lemon and coriander on the BBC Good Food website I decided to give it a go. Now I have modified this recipe quite a bit as the original recipe was extremely tart and lacked depth. But the result is a truly delicious fresh dip that is inexpensive to make and will make enough to feed and army. Literally.

 

Just a tip. When you make this it´s a good idea to only put a little bit of the lemon juice in at a time as every lemon yields a different amount of juice. Better safe than sorry!

 

Lemon Coriander Hummus
Adapted from BBC Good Food
Serves 10-15

3 x 400g cans of chickpeas in water
3 fat garlic cloves roughly chopped
3 tbsp Greek yoghurt
6-7 tbsp tahini paste
4 tbsp olive oil, plus extra
zest of 2 lemons
Juice of 1,5 lemons 20g coriander

 

1. Put everything except the lemon juice and the coriander into a food processor and whizz to a fairly smooth mix.
2. Scrape down the sides of the processor if you need to. Add lemon bit by bit to taste.
3. Season the hummus generously, then add the coriander and pulse until roughly chopped. Add more tahini if needed.
4. Spoon into a serving bowl, drizzle with olive oil, then serve with pita crisps or turkish bread.

 

Easy Hazelnut Chocolate Torte

This is such a typical Swedish recipe. Might not seem like it at first glance, but it´s another one of those super easy but yummy cakes that they do so well. It´s the kind of recipe that travels from home baker to home baker across the country, scribbled on a note, sent by email, passed on because it´s so darn yummy. I love this type of relaxed Swedish baking. This recipe is from a Swedish blogg called Lill-Ingers bakblogg. She has so many yummy cake recipes that I recognise from growing up in Sweden.

This cake was a massive hit at our recent house warming. Great served with blackberries too. Enjoy!

Note: Apparently this cake won an award at a local Swedish market back in 1988!

Easy Chocolate Hazelnut Torte 

Serves 8-10

Ingredients:
3 eggs
300 ml sugar (3dl)
150 g hazelnuts
1 tsp baking powder

Topping
3oo ml pouring cream (3dl)
2 tbs sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 tsp good quality cocoa powder - preferably dutch
dark chocolate 

1.Turn oven to 175 degrees celsius.

2. With an electric mixer beat eggs and sugar until doubled in size.

3. Blitz the hazelnuts in a food processor until they resemble fine meal.

4. Mix the nuts with baking powder and fold into eggs and sugar.

5. Pour the batter into a largeish spring form tin that has been buttered and lined with baking paper. Bake in the lower part of the oven (not all the way at the  bottom though) for about 40 minutes.

6. Loosen the spring form and let the cake cool and then transfer to a plate. 

7. Whip the cream together with the rest of the ingredients until soft peaks form and spread onto cake. Grate as much dark chocolate as you wish over the cake.  

Nathan's Pav

Every birthday for as long as I can remember my mum has made me a Pavlova. Topped with luscious folds of whipped cream and scattered with crimson summer strawberries, passionfruit and maybe some kiwi it is heaven on earth. Not to mention the spongy light marshmallow inside. Yum! Since I moved to Australia though I haven’t really had Pav’s for my birthday. That is until I met N. Sometime last year my very forthright mother decided to tell him about the Pavlova tradition, insisting that he bake one for me. I really didn’t think he’d do it but boy was I wrong. He presented me with a beautiful little Pavlova on the day. And one year later for my birthday another one has followed. He has adapted several recipes to make his own version.

Recipe...

Nathan’s Pav

Makes 1 small Pavlova, enough for 4-6 people

Method:

Start with clean, dry equipment. Rinse a glass bowl with boiling water and wipe with paper towel.

Sift caster sugar as you weigh it.

Egg whites – make sure no shell or yolk get into the egg white mix.

Use grease proof paper to secure the baking tray. Use a little smidge of Pavlova mix to hold it down in the corners.

Inredients:

4 Egg whites

220 g caster sugar

1 tsp white vinegar

1 tbs cornflour

1 vanilla pod

Beat whites approximately 10 minutes adding sugar 1 tablespoon at a time until completely dissolved. Add 1 tsp white vinegar, 1 tbs cornflour and seeds from 1 vanilla pod that has been halved and seeds scraped out. 

Draw an 18 cm circle on the baking parchment. Spread mixture inside circle and use spatula to draw furrows up towards the middle. Flatten pav on top.

Bake in 140 degrees Celsius for 10 minutes and then turn down heat to 110 degrees Celsius and bake for a further 1,5 hours. Leave to cool with oven door open.

Decorate with whipped cream and top with fruits or berries. Nathan served his Pavlova with Queensland strawberries and chocolate curls.