Tzatziki

We love making our own tzatziki, a Greek yogurt dip which is a perfect accompaniment for baked or fried dishes. Here's my recipe for it.

Baked Squid with Rice with Raisins & Pine Nuts. Recipe in this blog too.

Fried Eggplants with Honey

This is a dish that we tasted in Cordoba, in the South of Spain. It is served with a cold, tomato and bread puree, called Salmorejo. See recipe here which I shared last week.

The original version of the dish was sprinkled with poppy seeds. But since this is a banned ingredient in Singapore, I replicated the dish sans poppy seeds.

Here are the eggplants, served with Salmorejo, extra hard boiled eggs, chopped jamon and bread. Yummy!

Salmorejo (Spanish Tomato & Bread Puree)

Went on a family trip to Spain last month and it was wonderful and unforgettable! Still missing Spain up to now. :(  We were able to taste a variety of food, some of which are very similar or exactly the same as Filipino food, such as Cochinillo (suckling pig, which we Pinoys call lechon), Callos a la Madrileña (tripe and chorizo stew), paella, among many others. One dish which made a strong impression on us was a dish from Southern Spain called Salmorejo.

We visited Cordoba (the home of the famous religious and architectural wonder, the Mezquita), and Salmorejo is a dish that originated from there. It is a puree made from fresh tomatoes, bread, garlic, and sherry vinegar, and is served cold, perfect for the summer months and during our visit in August, the hottest month in Spain. Salmorejo is topped with chopped jamon serrano and hard boiled eggs and is eaten with warm bread.

We fell in love with this dish and I've replicated it here.

My homemade Salmorejo, served with chopped hard boiled eggs and jamon serrano.

Polenta Dough: for Extra Crispy Pizza & Flatbread Canapes

(This post is part of an ongoing series on the 2014 Singapore Blog Awards, sponsored by Panasonic.)

Homemade Flatbread with with Cheese & Horseradish Cream, Dill & Roe 

My family makes pizza dough from scratch, and we usually make it by hand. Homemade pizza is much healthier than commercially available ones (whether from a fast food restaurant or the frozen food section of the supermarket.). In addition, it challenges the family's creativity in using different ingredients versus your run-of-the-mill ham and pineapple or pepperoni and cheese.

I make the dough in advance and if the kids don't devour it right there and then, I store the extra dough in the freezer, oiled, wrapped in plastic wrap in a plastic container, so it doesn't dry out. Then we just take it out a few hours before we want to eat pizza. What makes this dough different is that it makes for extra crispy pizza (see tips below).

This time, I tried using the Panasonic Bread Maker, instead of making the dough by hand. It turned out well and saved me a lot of time! What would've taken me 2 hours to make took only 45 minutes with the bread maker.

So in this post, I'm going to share 2 recipes using the same dough. I will share some very different pizza flavours, and another recipe to show how you can use the very same dough to make some mini flatbread, topped with a mix of cream cheese and horseradish sauce, fish roe and dill. It really looks impressive and fancy, and makes for good hors d'oeuvres, but it's actually easy to make! My kids actually  helped to cut the dough into squares and once baked, top them with the cheese mix, the cut fresh dill and the roe. Too beautiful to eat and definitely more than presentable enough to serve at parties. But we didn't have a party this weekend, so the kids just devoured them for their afternoon snack!

Whole Wheat Skillet Buns with Caramelized Onion & Bacon Cheese Dip

This is a visually arresting, gooey, warm appetiser, and your guests will be so impressed when they see it. I saw this a few weeks ago from Seasons & Suppers website, and this dish is adapted from their Warm Skillet Bread and Artichoke Spinach Bread Recipe.  I've made my own variations by making the buns from a combination of whole wheat and bread flour (to make it healthier), and I've made the dip with cheese, caramelised onion and bacon.  If you prefer the vegetarian version, just omit the bacon.

This recipe also contains some tips for bread making which I learned from local bread making classes in Singapore, as well as from Le Cordon Bleu Boulangerie class.

Ham, Cheese & Herb Puff Pastry Pinwheels

Ham, Cheese & Herb Puff Pastry Pinwheels, a perfect appetiser for early birds.

Whenever you host a party at home, there's always the possibility of people arriving late. What can you serve to the early birds without stuffing them too much and depriving them of the delicious meal ahead?

I recently made this appetiser and it was a big hit, and they're very easy to make as well with store bought puff pastry. The small, light, individual bite sized servings allow your guest to eat as little or as much as they want to, while waiting for the other guests. But they're so good that one of my guests last Christmas ate 8 of them in one sitting!

Four Cheese Chive Souffle

This is a cheesy, savoury soufflé that you can serve as an appetiser. We had this during New Year's Eve dinner at home.  The soufflé is light and airy and can be an impressive start for a gourmet meal, but it's very easy to make. I asked my teenaged son to help me with this (well, he practically did almost everything...but he just didn't know it!)