Cheese and Onion Dip

It’s been a busy week in the kitchen for me, I haven’t been able to stop! It has also been a busy week in the kitchen for Bryan, as long as I am handling food, all he can see is an opportunity to eat anything I drop. To be fair I am pretty clumsy so he has a good chance of getting some tasty human food!

Bryan trying to look all innocent whilst at the same time standing as close to my feet as possible to catch anything I drop!

After not baking much since we arrived in Singapore I feel like I’ve started to make up for it the last few days. Earlier this week I made some chocolate cupcakes, they were so soft and moist I decided to make some salt caramel sauce to squeeze into the middle of them. Unfortunately the cupcakes didn’t last long enough for me to get to that stage so I am going to have to make another batch. I will definitely be posting the recipe for those! I’m not a huge chocolate fan and even I found them irresistible. I also made a couple of soups, parmesan and belper knolle crisps, some tomato pesto using the semi dried tomatoes I had left over from a couple of weeks ago and this dip. This is such an easy dip to make when entertaining and can easily be thrown together last minute with three simple ingredients. Cheddar, onion and salad cream. Simply grate the cheese, finely chop the onion and squeeze in enough salad cream to make it a ‘dip’ consistency. Then all you need to do is scoop it up with some crudités or smother on some cheese biscuits. I have a friend who has an intolerance to onion and still finds this dip irresistible!

50g Cheddar cheese

50g Onion (approx half a medium onion)

75g Salad Cream

Just grate the cheese, blitz the onion in a food processor and mix together with the salad cream.

A Pug can dream!

Fresh and Fast Feta Salad

September? Where did you come from?! Summer is coming to an end and I think most of us like to try and drag it out for as long as possible. When we moved to Singapore 3 months ago, one of the things we knew we would miss are the seasons. They are so prominent in both the UK where we are from and Switzerland where we lived prior to here. Around about now we would be making the most of the last few days of Summer with those dark evenings slowly creeping in. This year I find myself longing to stand in the countryside under a light shower of rain with a cool breeze in my face.

In a way, having the constant heat has been a blessing for me. With arms and legs regularly on show, it’s a big kick up the backside to get me in the gym and eating healthy salads. Here is a yummy side salad, nothing needs cooking just chop everything up and throw it together. Great served with Steak, Chicken or with a jacket spud as I did for lunch today! Normally when I serve a salad, the other half smothers it in salad cream, this is one of the few salads he will eat without any dressing at all. It is so simple yet so tasty, and low on those calories too!

This recipe serves one so you can easily multiply.

You’ll be needing…

15g red onion, diced

35g low fat feta, you can use full fat if you are feeling naughty!

8 cherry tomatoes, quartered

8 medium sized fresh mint leaves, finely chopped

Just throw it all together, et voila!

My lunch today was really tasty! Just what I wanted after my morning Zumba class.

Cheesy potato skins

Finger food really is great, you can have so many of your favorite things in one sitting without feeling like you’ve been sat at an all you can eat Las Vegas buffet. I regularly do these if we have guests coming round for nibbles as all the prep work can be done beforehand and then you can just bung them in the oven to heat through once you’re getting hungry, leaving you to enjoy a nice cold glass of wine. I digress, back to the food! In this case, we fired up the BBQ for the first time in our new home and I just had to make some of these yummy gooey potato skins to pop on the coals.

 

All you’ll need is

 

Baked potatoes (enough to serve everyone who’s eating)

Butter (you’ll need a small chunk to help blend the ingredients)

Cheese, grated, I used 50g with 3 small potatoes but use as much or as little as you like, it all depends on how much you like cheese!

Onion, roughly chopped, I used half for the two of us but again, it depends how much you like it

Bacon lardon, I used about 40g for two servings

Salt and pepper

Clean and pierce the potatoes and bake in the oven as you would a baked potatoes. Leave until cool enough to handle. This next bit is easier to do if the potatoes are still slightly warm. Cut in half and scoop out the filling taking care not to tear the skins. Roughly mash the potatoes with the other ingredients and spoon it all back into the skins. At this point you can either leave to cool and refrigerate over night or wrap and pop them in the freezer but if you want them now, stick them straight into the oven at 180 degrees for about 15 minutes or until the tops go golden, or, as we did last night, wrap them individually in foil and pop them on the BBQ until they’re nice and hot.

 

 

Cheddar and onion is one my favorite flavor combinations but it’s so easy to experiment, last night I did a mix of Cheddar, onion and bacon and Stilton, bacon and onion, you could also try adding spring onions, salad peppers, sweet corn or even baked beans for the kids!