Garlic Dijon vinaigrette dressing
Cream cheese Wellington
Warm or cold, this cream cheese baked in puff-pastry and layered with Cremini mushrooms, bacon and shallots pairs well with a small bottle of Lambrusco and some left over ciabatta that you have toasted up.
This is one of those dishes you want to take it easy on because you aren’t fooling anyone when you say you are on a diet and then proceed to eat half of this appetizer. It is about as healthy as it sounds. My wife kids herself that this dish is healthier when I make this with “reduced fat” cream cheese.
This is a perfect appetizer spread when you have friends over and is incredibly easy to prepare. I’ve laid out the instructions so that your time actually cooking is kept to a minimum if you can chop whilst keeping an eye on a pan on the stove.
There is no Nutrition Label for this recipe yet.
Awesome Onions
Our kitchen has about six recipes for grilled onions that are our “go to” recipe for various dishes depending on whether we want sweet, smoky, earthy, and so on.
This particular onion recipe works well on steak sandwiches and grilled burgers as it has a slightly sweet flavour that makes the underlying smokiness of the meat “pop.”
Crystallized Ginger
I use crystallized ginger in a variety of desserts and cakes, it makes hot tea taste wonderful, and makes for a sweet and spicy snack just to eat whenever.
Once you have made a batch of crystallized ginger, you can use the leftover water that you boiled the ginger in to make ginger simple syrup.
Sparkling Lemonade
This the simplest homemade lemonade you can imagine. Exceptionally easy to make.
When I serve this I usually put the simple syrup and sparkling water in to two separate small decanting bottles and let my guests construct their own lemonade drinks to their taste.
Simple syrup
Simple syrups are used in so many recipes and drink mixes that it is worth keeping a half-liter bottle on hand.
As you can store simple syrup in the refrigerator almost indefinitely, there’s no excuse to never have it to available.
Buttermilk
Buttermilk is one of those ingredients you need when you need. And at any other time it just sits on your fridge door until you have to pour it away down the sink when it spoiled.
I make my buttermilk on demand almost to the exact amount the recipe requires rather than trying to keep a store bought variety in stock.
Margherita pizza variation #2
This is a pretty simple Margherita pizza that uses limited ingredients. It is usually what I to throw together when at a friend’s house and working with a limited pantry inventory.
For the pizza dough recipe check out either this recipe, or this recipe. And for the pizza sauce recipe, there is this one, and also this one.
Slow and steady pizza dough
This is a long slow rise pizza dough. It is the kind of dough that you find in good pizzerias. The kind of dough that has good stretch.
The dough develops its stretch and a lot of its flavour from the long, slow rise that you give it.
Quick French onion soup
This is my quick French onion soup recipe. It comes together in about two hours of cook time, which is ideal for a late dinner, or even lunch.
This is a recipe that is perfect for “when the mood strikes you” rather than having to plan ahead with my slower French onion soup recipes.