A simple yet stunning appetiser?

cheeses, dried fruits, conserve, marcona almonds......without reading your dinner menu it's hard to come up with a complimentary appetizer.

how about a simple mushroom soup with sherry.

I make a nice clear one, and a 'cream of' one. Simple to make, if you use nice mushrooms it is elegant with the sherry taste, and I would guess that it would go with most Christmas meals.

The other one I make that is always very popular yet surprisingly easy, I would only suggest if you need something to put out in another seating area, it's more like a casual pre-dinner something to munch on with cocktails than for plating at the table.

You take a goat cheese log, fairly large. Fresh rosemary leaves snipped, and coarsely crushed pink peppercorns, and you roll the log in that, embedding red and green flecks. That part can be done as soon in advance as your require. Then you just reduce balsamic vinegar until it has lost most of its vinegaryness, (you still want a little tart, but syrupy, I can't give you a volume-based reduction amount, you have to go by taste). Then you pour that as a warm syrup over the goat cheese and serve with plain crackers, I usually go for a cream cracker or water cracker or similar that I've made myself. (you don't want much flavor in the cracker, a really plain cracker). You can also reduce the vinegar in advance, just warm slightly before pouring on the cheese. It looks best served on a long narrow rectangular dish, crackers in another vessel of some sort.

Or if you want something fresh and light and plated, how about a ripe fresh pear carpaccio, next to a little salad of tender greens including say watercress, pea shoots, mache, stuff like that, a watercress in combination with lettuces that are mild and tender. with a couple walnut halves, candied or not, and a little piece of a lovely cheese, and done.

I always love pear to be in the holiday meal in some capacity.

If you're after something really easy and cocktail food, there's always a slice of dried pear, with a little camembert, and a few currants poked into the cheese.

can't go wrong with deviled eggs.

My advice to a jetlagged traveller?

Get yourself down to M&S or Waitrose and pick up some of their gorgeous platters....!

I was going to suggest cream of mushroom soup, too. How about bacon and bleu cheese dip with sliced pears and apples? That seems to be my "go to" recipe of late.

I really like the pick-up platter idea, too!

simple app

Stir it up, I am going to try your cheese lig for a party later in the week... love the idea!

Waitrose....what an option! We drool over the photos in the magazine, so gorgeous. Would love to see it live someday.

How about spanakotiropites? That is, little spinach-feta pies. YOu can make them ahead and freeze, then bake when you need them. They look fabulous, as do most things made with phyllo pastry. I usually get about 84 pieces out of one pound of phyllo. You can also make different fillings, such as mushroom duxelles, curried vegetable, etc.

Did you mean Spanakopita?

So this isn't the right crowd for piggies-in-a-blanket then?:D

Everyone seems to have so much trouble sneering at them with their mouths full...

I buy all my meat from my local, organic butcher - but everything else, including all my organic veggies come from Waitrose.

As you say, their magazine photography is absolutely amazing - we get it free as a weekly customer and account holder!

Their platters of seafood bites and meat bites are just AMAZING. I'm not spending hours making, when I can go to M&S (another BRILLIANT source of ready-made, superior appetisers) or Waitrose!

YAAAY IWells - you KNOW I'm talking sense!

I know what you mean!!! I had a party this weekend and one of the apps they requested were "cocktail franks in pastry". I wasn't so sure what she meant because it sounded alot like pigs in a blanket. That's what she got, and we were sneering and snickering all the while we were pigging out on the extras. They were delicious! Don't tell anyone, but I think I'll make them for my own party this weekend. Naturally, I'll serve them with gourmet mustard.:smoking:

Enmeshed in studying and preparing for finals (and then having to cancel my last dinner party), I was just thinking today I need to throw a party here, and cook (it seems like I haven't really cooked anything above pasta all month, lol)...and I'm totally going to try this -- sounds really yummy without being too heavy. And the flavor combinations sound perfect. :)

Aw, c'mon...

Just get seven pounds of caviar and dump it out on a plate. :bounce:

No time, no work.

Well, maybe some crackers.

Mike

sorry, I'll try not to do that again

Scallops on the 1/2 shell, Embelish according to the season.:chef:

Jigz,sort of- yes. These are little pies ("pites" is plural of "pita" although the spelling isn't accurate for the Greek, of course). Adding "tiro" means there is cheese in the mix. Spinach cheese pies, therefore, is spanakotiropites. I stand corrected if a Greek speaker sets me straight! I learned to call them that from Greek-American friends.

I lay the phyllo sheet sideways on the counter, brush with butter, lay another sheet on top, brush with butter, then cut into strips about 2" wide. I spoon about 1 teaspoon of the filling in the corner of one end, then fold like a flag into triangles. They get one more brush with butter and are laid on a foil-lined baking sheet. When the sheet is full I cover tightly with plastic wrap and then with foil and freeze- sheet and all. Later you can put them in smaller containers when they're completely frozen.

The little devils go for about $1.00 US each around here if you try to buy them ready-to-bake. I'd guess the cost for materials is more like $0.05 each. Not a bad markup!

Wish we had Waitrose in Dundee too Ishbel. I was spoilt when i lived down south. now i just have memories of supermarket shopping i could enjoy.
We're having a steamboat as a starter. I recently bought an electric one. But An electric wok does as well....1/2 fill with good stock, plug in, make plates of raw seafood, tender steak, veg. Noodles. Everyone just cooks what they want, like a fondue. Have plenty of salady stuff and sauces around too. Provide chopsticks and forks and get stuck in. It's easy-peasy and the soup you are left with in the end is to die for...

Bughut, that sounds like "shabu-shabu" or Mongolian hot-pot. :lips:

this is heresy on Cheftalk with our Greek leader, but Trader Joe's spanokopitas are really good....dillweed, feta, spinach, onions.....not the full pan but the individuals.....they come very very close in flavor to what I make from scratch, in a pinch they are a great substitute and about $4ish for about 20 ish pieces.

I've got 3 hotpots....they get used as props more than Mongolian hotpot....not electric but coal or someother heat source....kinda of a pain for entertaining inside.....worry about burning down the table or burning guests etc.....but you've just renewed interest in trying to make something work....

pigs in a blanket.....another local cooking site I'm active on had special recipes for the holidays posted....one was cocktail weinies with grape jelly and I want to say BBQ sauce or mustard put in a crock pot for 6-8 hours....no kidding....after reading the grape jelly part my brain goes numb and the rest just does not compute.


So, do you shop the growers markets in London? The photos I've seen are amazing.....really gorgeous.

As to Waitrose Mag....it's about $10 US when you can find it.....The Austrailian Vogue is pretty and interesting also. Why are your photos so much nicer than US magazines? Not the product per se but the quality of photos?

When I visit my daughter in London, we try to go to Borough Market, and other London markets that I used to visit when I lived there. We also have a pretty good farmer's market in Edinburgh, too.

As for the photographs: I think the quality of the Waitrose photos is second to none - but then they do pay top dollar for the best foodie stylists/photographers!

Have you ever seen Olive magazine? That's well worth a look, too.

Bughut: We've got 2 Waitrose now.... I know how you feel about the lack of them... I had serious withdrawal symptoms when I first moved from London!

Maybe Dundee will be next for the Waitrose invasion?

Well Dundee is still quaking after the Morrissons invasion. Cant believe the hype, or the anti climax. Blaugh!!!
I've still to order from the M&S catering mag. Fabulous photos. Actually too good maybe. Do you really want your food to be so pristine and uniform?? And do you believe it will look like that when you get it?? Must try them soon & check out the competition...Ever the Cynic.
Nearest farmers market is 19miles away in Perth once a month i think. I sooo miss the markets in London Ishbel. I had a stall on the cut in se17 and another in Covent Garden 25 years ago before it got poncy, and I shopped at the other stalls on my breaks at a fraction of the shop and supermarket prices. My favourites ones were club row and east st markets. I forget the one my dad used to regularly get his cheeses from.
Spent last Sunday in Edinburgh. Not a happy shopper day. Deed done though. Not even time for the usual lunch at Filthy McNasties, Not that I rate it much any more. I think we only went there cos they opened to the street & we could smoke ( back in the day ie. 2 1/2 weeks off the cigs so far)

Bughut
I remember the Cut market - also liked Chapel Street Market in Islington (near my daughter's flat).

You should try the Valvona and Crolla restaurant in Multrees Walk (side of Harvey Nicks) when next in town. Now you don't smoke... let him suffer and you'll enjoy the food!

Wells... I buy all meats from my local butcher, all organic. BUT, I couldn't do without Waitrose or M&S!

if we're talking street markets in london, the difficult to get to broadway market in hackney is my favorite. There's a little stand there selling varieties of mushrooms, and they make a sandwich, fresh, right in front of you on a camp burner and a frying pan, butter, mixed fresh mushrooms, shaved pecorino with black pepper, and all on exceptionally good whole grain sourdough bread. Worth the hour bus ride and the half hour walk to get there for that. Also nice little stands with some treats, like varieties of unusual tomatoes, meat, and umbrian cheeses.

Hackney's a little too far off my beaten track now I don't live in London, Siduri - I couldn't spare the time nowadays when I only make 1-3 days visits and have so many things to do/see/places to eat in central London!

I wish I'd known about it when I DID live there, though, cos it sounds great!

Come on guy's the answer is simple, every body eats too much Christmas day so the entree needs to be fresh and intersting but not too much work. So how about a cherry tomatoe and fetta cheese salad with fine strips of [cured ham] parma, bayonne, sarrano etc. dressed with a basil, cracked pepper and olive oil dressing perfect with your ciabbata.
Steve masterchefinfrance.com

Come on guy's the answer is simple, every body eats too much Christmas day so the entree needs to be fresh and intersting but not too much work. So how about a cherry tomatoe and fetta cheese salad with fine strips of [cured ham] parma, bayonne, sarrano etc. dressed with a basil, cracked pepper and olive oil dressing perfect with your ciabbata.
Steve masterchefinfrance.com

Sorry Mezazaluna but before the site gets hit to hard I think you are thinking with your Greek head and not the culinery one its fillo pastry. Phillo was most proberbly the god of love and food and all things nice.
Steve masterchefinfrance.com