New Years Eve Party

For New Years eve I decided to throw a little get together with some of my closest friends.

I've never gone wrong with Not Quite Nigella's recipes, so most of these are from her wonderful site.

This dessert was a last minute decision, I had all the ingredients already and just needed coconut and it just looked so darn good. It was incredible. If it wasn't for the tedious nature of making coconut butter, I'd be making this all. the. time. I've actually made coconut butter before and it took even longer than this, mainly because 1) I was using shredded coconut and 2) I wasn't adding much water to help it along. The water really is so necessary.

I did the same thing as NQN except for a few modifications, click here for the recipe. I blended 2.5 cups of desiccated coconut as last time in making coconut butter I didn't think I used enough. It starts as a flour consistency, then it lumps together and finally forms a butter like texture. Hallelujah. It only takes forever though considering you need to scrape down the sides and stop the processor ever so often to prevent overheating. Mine actually overheated awhile ago and once it gets too hot it just stops on its own. It's one from target and cost $20, I love it.

Then I added about 4 tablespoons of water, used a ripe banana, 2 tablespoons of raw honey, 1 tsp of a good quality vanilla extract, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon. Then after that was done, I added in a cup of frozen blueberries (cut in half). I also then lined a takeaway container and put it in the freezer overnight.

It has a mild coconut flavour and slightly sweet with a bit of texture from the coconut

Another dessert I made was a mango and blueberry vegan cheesecake inspired by this that is a fair bit cheaper.

The last time I made a vegan cheesecake I used a cake tin that was 8 inches in diameter that was far too big, resulting in a very thin cake. This time, I made the base and saw that a 6 inch cake tin would be better, even though the original recipe uses an 8inch.

Fo the base: I just got a packet of raw mixed nuts and separated them
1 cup almonds
1/2 cup hazlenuts (not enough almonds in the original packet).
3 cups of cut up pitted dates (woolworths brand, only $2 and tastes like medjool dates but slightly less sticky and sweet). I poured hot water over them, removed the hard skin and cut them up.

For the middle:
I used 2 cups of soaked cashew nuts (soaked overnight).
2 frozen overripe bananas (sliced)
1/3 cup of maple syrup
1/3 cup lite coconut milk
1 teaspoon cinnamon

For the top:
1 cup frozen blueberries
1 cup mango
1 frozen sliced banana
1 teaspoon of cinnamon

To make:
1. Blend almonds and hazelnuts until chopped then add in chopped dates until sticky. Press into cake tin and put in freezer.
2. Blend all the ingredients in the middle layer until smooth. Pour 3/4 into cake tin (use 1/4 for top layer) Put back in freezer. One thing I did wrong was I put all my bananas in one bowl to freeze. Then put them all in the middle layer instead of reserving one for the top layer.
3. For the top layer, I blended the 1/4 left from the middle, mango, banana, blueberries and cinnamon. I left out the maple syrup and dates as it was already quite sweet from the mango. I put this back in the fridge and then blended it again. Poured it into the cake tin and I put it back in the freezer.

I think this would work if you switched up the fruits too, so maybe use a berry and another fruit that's in season. Pitted dates and frozen fruits do work though.

I found the base was way too sweet for me but I enjoyed the other layers, it has quite an overwhelming banana taste though. Next time I would reduce the number of dates in the base to 2 cups and also reduce the amount of maple syrup in the middle to 1/4 cup.

Some other desserts present included: coconut and pandan cake and rocky road. The coconut and pandan cake was extremely light and moist, not oily at all, not overly sweet and had a very mild coconut and pandan flavour. Similar texture to an airier sponge cake.

For snacks:
I also made 2 dips, both served with toasted lebanese bread.

One was NQN's tuna dip which I followed exactly. The flavours marry well together, it's perfectly balanced and reminds me of a pate (but with tuna). It has a vinegary taste which is offset by the creaminess from the residual oil (from the tuna) and the mayo. It was a huge hit

I also made this hummus recipe with some additions.

Basically blended a can of chickpeas (skin removed), save 1/4 liquid, a crushed clove of garlic and 2 tablespoons of hulled tahini. Then added 3/4 juice of a lemon, cumin, tiniest bit of chill powder, salt, 1/4 reserved liquid. I like that it doesn't have a ton of olive oil like a lot of other recipes and it's quick.

I removed the skin beforehand to make it creamier, crushed the garlic clove. My favourite hummus is still the Aldi one and an Obela brand pine nut one.

For main:

I made NQN's Singaporean noodles which was really good. I also added in quite a lot of water towards the end because I prefer wetter noodles and stirred it quite a bit to break up the noodles. I also reduced the curry powder to 3 tablespoons

I also made a watermelon, feta and mint salad. I used 1/4 of a watermelon, 50g of feta and a few torn up mint leaves. I didn't mind it but I wouldn't make it again, it was refreshing though.

Some other mains included potato puffs and these chicken bites (which had garlic butter inside)

I hope you all have a very happy new year!

My 21st!

I had a little party for my 21st with 8 of my closest friends. Here's what I made:

Appetisers

Spinach dip in a cob loaf:

You need a packet (250g) frozen spinach thawed and get as much of the liquid out as possible, 1 500g tub of lite sour cream and a continental spring vegetable soup sachet (I think some people use french onion too).

Mix these together and I left this mix in the fridge for a few hours.

When guests arrive, Slice off the top of the loaf, pull out the bread from the inside so it's only the case. Put the dip mixture into the hole you've made. I added some pizza mix cheese on top.

Then put it in the oven at 150 degrees celcius for 15 minutes, then put the torn bread (from the cob loaf) into the oven too for another 5 minutes.

You can also serve this cold too.

Chunky Guacamole inspired by this:

4 ripe avocados diced and slightly smushed up, 1 tomato, 1/2 spanish onion, 3/4 cup of toasted pine nuts, handful of corriander, some chopped sundried tomatoes and juice from 1 lemon. Served with corn chips but it didn't taste as good as it looked, I didn't like the lemon juice in it.

Red rock deli dips - the red capsicum dip is my absolute favourite and the thai pumpkin one was alright. Served with corn chips like the guacamole

 Roasted red capsicum, pecorino, cashews and basil dip 

 Thai curry pumpkin and cashews, tastes like pumpkin with thai spices

Main:

DIY pizza: I had everyone make their own pizza, I had a lot of toppings (way too much for 8 people), 1 bottle of tomato paste, 1 packet of pizza mix cheese and I used the mission pizza bases (my favourite but you can also use 2 sheets of mountain bread or lebanese bread ).

Toppings:

- 1 small butternut pumpkin

- 3 capcicum

- 500g button mushrooms

- 600g marinara mix

- 12 slices or so of salami

- ham

- 1 whole roast chicken from Coles which I shredded

- 1 tin of olives

- 1 can of pineapple pieces

- sundried tomato

- pinenuts, walnuts and cashews

- rocket

- feta

Pizza's from the night:

I had a lot left over so these are some of my leftover pizza combinations:

This one has shredded chicken, capsicum, some pumpkin, some mushroom, onion, olives, cheese and some feta.

This has some chicken, pumpkin, capsicum, olives, sun dried tomato, pine nuts and feta

Rocket, parmesan, walnut salad:

I used 400g of rocket leaves, 125g shaved parmesan and 1 cup of toasted walnuts and 4 ripe pears (shaved with a grater). I also made a lemon/olive oil dressing with 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil and 1/2 cup of fresh lemon juice  but it didn't need it.

Make this just before guests arrive otherwise the pears go dark.

I also bought some Coles brand Garlic bread

Dessert

I had the small ricotta cheesecake from Pasticceria Papa. Possibly my favourite cake ever.