Whipped feta

This came about as a good way to use up part of a block of feta left over from something else. I love feta but it doesn’t keep long after you’ve opened it, and there never seems to be exactly the right amount in the block for what you’re making… This is really quick and simple and the rest of the ingredients we pretty much always have. 

1/2 block feta
1/2 cup skyr
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tbsp lemon juice
Pinch of salt
Little bit of garlic, crushed

Put all ingredients in a little blender and blend. Scrape into serving bowl and sprinkle additional salt, pepper and olive oil on top. 

Guacamole

Guacamole is kind of too simple for a recipe, but there are lots of different schools of thought on it, and I do have a favourite way of making it...

c. 2 ripe avocados, peeled and destoned

1 small tomato, finely chopped

c. 1 tsp finely chopped onion

juice of one lime

1-2 tsp coriander, finely chopped (optional) 

few drops of hot sauce (optional)

pinch of salt

Mush it all together with a fork. Nice if the avocados are still a little bit chunky.

Updated muhammara

I hadn't made muhammara for a while, but S bought some in the supermarket and it was really sweet and didn't have any walnuts in it and just made me pine for the real thing. And then I remembered it was an excellent use for walnuts - am always looking for excellent uses for walnuts, since we have a big old walnut tree in the garden. I have been testing out a few different combinations and textures for muhammara, here is my old version, and here is my latest:

3 red peppers
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1/2 cup walnuts, toasted
1 clove garlic
1 tsp dried red chilli flakes
1 tbsp pomegranate molasses
juice of 1/2 lime (or lemon)
1 tsp ground cumin
1-2 tbsp olive oil

Roast red peppers at high heat, c. 220C, until collapsed and with blackened spots. Cover and let cool, then remove peel and seeds. Can be kept in the fridge for a day or so until ready to make the muhammara.

When ready to make the muhammara, first toast the walnuts. Then put the peppers, breadcrumbs, garlic, chilli, pomegranate molasses, citrus juice, cumin and olive oil in a blender and blend until smooth. Crush the walnuts with a pestle and mortar, and then mix in a bowl with the pepper mixture. Check consistency and taste for seasoning.

Mushroom pate

I had thought of making this mushroom pate for ages - it sounded simple and tasty. Then ended up with lots of nice fresh mushrooms, and it turns out that the baby loooovvvves mushrooms. Mushrooms are top of my list of foods I didn't expect him to like but he loves... He also likes cream cheese, so I figured it was time...

30 g butter
250 g mushrooms, cleaned, trimmed and finely chopped
3-4 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
250 g cream cheese (used 125 g)
salt+pepper

Melt the butter in a large frying pan over a medium heat. Add the mushrooms and garlic and saute until the mushrooms' moisture has been released and reabsorbed and they are nicely browned. Leave to cool.

Scrape the mushroom mix into a blender and blend up. Add the cream cheese and mix. Season to taste then let cool completely. Ideally refrigerate for at least an hour.


And yes, the small one is well into it.

White bean and sundried tomato spread

Another option with all those white beans. This time a dip/spread we took to work to eat with carrot sticks and flatbreads. It was lovely and smooth. Although I added some sundried tomatoes to the blended mixture that time and I wouldn't recommend that as it ends up looking like taramasalata.

1 1/2 cups cooked white beans
1 small clove garlic
2 tbsp olive oil (use oil from sundried tomatoes)
juice of 1/4 lemon
salt and pepper

4 sundried tomatoes, chopped
handful of toasted pumpkin seeds

Blend beans, garlic, olive oil, lemon, salt and pepper. Check seasoning, acidity and consistency and add salt/pepper, lemon juice or water accordingly. Put into tubs and top with chopped sundried tomatoes and toasted pumpkin seeds.

Spiced okara and red lentil dip

I made more tofu, partly because I wanted to see if I could do a better job / get a more stand-up texture, partly because I kind of wanted more okara to play with - the cornbread I made with the last lot was so, surprisingly delicious...

I used part of the okara for this dip - it's a variation on the red lentil dip I've made many times.

1/2 cup red lentils
1/2 cup okara
1 1/2 cups water
1/2 clove garlic
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground coriander seed
1 tsp sumac
1/2 tsp ground ginger
~ 1 tbsp olive oil
salt+pepper

Put lentils, okara and water in a small pan, cover and bring to the boil. Simmer gently for ~ 10 min, then turn off the heat and leave pan covered for ~15 min. Add the remaining ingredients and blend to a paste.

Green tofu spread

I made this spread / dip with the rest of my fresh tofu, recipe from the same page (adjusted a little).

8 oz fresh tofu (or silken)
1/2 cup frozen peas, defrosted
~2 tbsp lime juice
1/4 clove garlic
1 spring onion, roughly chopped
~3 tbsp chopped coriander
1/2 tsp dried basil
1/2 tsp dried oregano
salt+pepper

Put all ingredients in a blender cup and blend until smooth. Taste, and add more salt and pepper if needed.


I put two spring onions in and thought it a bit much, although the onioniness wears off gradually, perhaps tomorrow it will be perfect. It is lovely and creamy and delicately green, kind of a minty green (might be nice with mint instead of coriander, incidentally).

Unsweetened apple butter

I came across this method at some point, and it got me thinking about trying to make jam or spread without adding sugar: just using the sugar already present in the fruit. I went up a tree with M on Saturday and picked more apples. Small, yellowish-green ones with a pinkish blush on some; M described them as having a rosewater / lychee flavour and I had to agree when I tasted them. So then I had fruit to experiment with. I peeled and cored the apples and cut them into chunks, then blended them til smooth (adding a splash of pineapple juice to get the blender started)*. Then I transferred the whole lot into a saucepan and simmered, uncovered, for 6-7 hours. I occasionally added a splash more pineapple juice if I thought it looked like it was sticking. Probably added about 200 ml pineapple juice all told. It reduced massively (~ 2 full blenders of apple chunks became ~400 ml of thick apple stuff); took on a brownish colour and a slightly caramelised taste. I turned it off when it was really thick and starting to stick a lot. I decided to call it apple butter - it seemed more like apple butter than anything else. It's quite sweet - you're definitely not wondering where the sugar is.

My original thought had been just to extract the juice and reduce that, with the aim of making something more like a fruit molasses - I love all the fruit molasses I've tried (date, pomegranate, mulberry, carob, grape...). But I couldn't bring myself to chuck out so much of the apples so decided to liquidise and then reduce all the flesh and see what happened. I wonder if doing this with grapes or plums or similar would give something stickier and more like a molasses - apples contain a lot of fibre.

But still, this apple-y experiment is pretty tasty.

*Note: I think I might have got smoother results if I'd liquidised after cooking the apples to soften them instead of doing it before cooking.