Displaying items by tag: snacks

Pakora are always popular in our house. Very often I make them with chard as I have it growing in the garden. Pakora are one of those snacks that you can whisk up quickly if people turn up for happy hour and you want something hot and crispy to nibble on.

Leftover French bread turned into a pizza for lunch today.  Did you know that if you run a stale baguette under the cold tap for a second and then place it in a hot oven for 5 or 10 minutes it's nearly as good as new?

• Leftover cheese
• Soften onion and add evaporated milk
• Grated cheese
• Mix well
•  

A perfect way to use up all those leftover pieces of cheese in your fridge. All types of cheese can be used. It will keep for a week in the fridge and is a good vegetarian recipe.

Ingredients

225g grated cheese ( chop up cheeses that are hard to grate i.e Brie/Camembert

170g (small tin) evaporated milk

1 very small onion or 3 spring onions finely diced

1 tsp chopped chives

pinch of mustard powder

pepper

a little oil or butter for fying the onion

Method

Heat a small knob of butter or splash of oil in a saucepan and soften the chopped onion

Pour in the evaporated milk

Add the grated cheese, mustard powder and a little ground pepper

Stir well until the cheese has melted

Stir in the chopped chives

Pour into ramekins and leave to set in the fridge

Eat spread on toast or with a baked potato

Started in Italy after the war when there wasn't much money about - yes, its an old idea - promoted in seventeen countries in the world and recently hi-jacked by Starbucks, here's how it is intended to work.

Choose a nice local independent cafe that has a discreet 'suspended coffee' sign in the window to buy your lunch, buy yourself a sandwich and a coffee. At the same time, pay for an extra coffee, asking for it to be suspended.

Johny Cakes - a man who has lost his job (it happened) is facing being homeless (not quite) and is looking for work, will see the sign that the cafe has out the front, saying they are taking part in suspended coffee, and asks if there are any suspended coffees available. Within five minutes he has a warm drink in his hands, thanks to the anonymous act of kindness of yourself and the cafe. Some places have extended it to food - I would like liver and bacon with mashed potatoes and runner beans please. 

A late arrival got us both in for a fiver (you have to pay for this one...) but most of the food people were still there. What a proliferation of pickles! Lots of the same thing (of the chili jelly/home-made tomato ketchup variety) with one or two interesting exceptions - home made drinks and hot food, and lots of suppliers from Essex. But we love Abroad, and of course Essex gave us Jamie Oliver. We tried ice-cream, crisps, chocolate, strawberry and raspberry vodkas (although they weren't keen on Inspector X's horseradish vodka suggestion...) rhubarb and ginger cordial, fresh lemonade (so easy, so nice) and a shark kebab (very close to my Caribbean heart...shark kebabs...)

Oh the choice? Where to go first? With so many foodie things on one day we did an extensive expensive dash around the county - first to Orford where we knew we were going to find treats because they have the Pump Street Bakery and Pinneys and then to the Greene King Beer Festival (they may have had food but it was more about the beer...)

At Orford I spent £80 in as many yards, starting with a fab strawberry tart (well, half of one, because even Inspector X and I can only eat so much in one day...) followed by (half) a pulled pork wrap with coleslaw, the best salami we have tried in a while, an oyster, a Bloody Awkward (which regular followers of suffolkfoodie will know is an espresso with hot milk on the side - ie a SMALL coffee not a GIANT coffee, in fact I think it's called a cafe con leche Abroad, but is still to catch on here...) Where was I... a chocolate mousse and a dessert wine. What we couldn't eat we bought home - two bottles of Hill Farm oil, two Hill Farm mayo, a pheasant scotch egg, a fennel salami, honey-salted caramels, peanut brittle; doughnuts, a bears paw (more later on that one...) portuguese tarts and some other little tarts with almond and plum whose name I've forgotten, hot mint jelly, three crabs and two huge skate wings. The only thing missing at Orford was hot food and a home-made drinks.

In the next few days we will tell you what we bought in BSE and show you ALL the sumptuous pictures of the food we found.

A delicious treat and the perfect way to use up those unripe tomatoes.  Vegetarian too!

Ingredients:

• 4 to 6 green tomatoes
• salt and pepper
• beaten egg
• cornmeal
• vegetable oil for frying

Preparation:

Slice the tomatoes into 1/4 - 1/2-inch slices. Salt and pepper them to taste. Dip in the beaten egg and then the corn meal. Fry in hot oil for about 3 minutes or until golden on bottom. Gently turn and fry the other side. Serve as a side dish - delicious with breakfast!

Yes, in my local Italian cafe you can get liver and bacon on a plate with veg, or in a sandwich!

What to do on a weekend as miserable as this except cook? Last Sunday I went to Brick Lane and only had a fiver, although you can get a good meal for that I wanted to try more than one, so I was looking for the best bargains. I had two crispy filo pastry 'cigars' stuffed with feta and spinach for a £1 from one stall, and a box of four Vietnamese spring rolls for £3 from another. That left £1 for a  juice. As I was watching the lady make the spring rolls to order - they soak the paper in water, fill them with salad and satay sauce and roll up - I decided to try it myself, so have been to buy a pack of the papers.This is the quickest, easiest, cheapest, healthiest snack I have had in a long time. I used peanut butter with soy, honey and lime to make the satay sauce, and the sweet chili sauce that most of us have now for dipping. My spring rolls were not as good looking as hers, but tasted the same! if you can't get the papers let me know and i'll send you some.