Goat's Cheese Monte Cristos

When I was at university, my friend Dan made the best late-night post-pub cheese toasties - I've had my own Breville sandwich toaster for several years (the same brand that my parents had when I was a kid, a long time ago) and there is definitely something comforting, if a little greasy, about a toasted cheese sandwich.

I usually add a slice of ham and maybe a smear of mustard to mine, but that's as fancy as it goes. I was looking through a recipe book I have reviewed before called Breakfast for Dinner looking for weekend lunch recipes and came across Monte Cristos - which are effectively cheese toasties but posher.

Apparently this particular recipe originated in the US - it uses turkey and goat's cheese, with hot red pepper jelly for sweetness and spice, though as I didn't have any and didn't want to make it from scratch, I used cranberry jelly instead. You don't need a dedicated sandwich toaster - you make this in a skillet or frying pan, brushing the bread with egg to make an almost eggy-bread texture.

To serve 4, you need:
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/4 tsp salt
8 slices bread
100g spreadable goat's cheese
1/4 cup hot red pepper jelly - I used cranberry jelly
8 slices roast turkey
2 tbsp. butter

Spread 2 tbsp. goat's cheese onto a slice of bread, then 1 tbsp. jelly. Top with a slice of turkey and another piece of bread to make a sandwich.

Whisk the eggs, milk and salt in a jug and brush over the top of the sandwich.

Melt the butter in the frying pan and place the sandwich in the pan, egg side down. Brush the other side of the sandwich with egg mixture. Cook for 3-4 minutes then turn and cook on the other side, then keep warm wrapped in foil while you repeat with the rest of the sandwiches.

Non-alcoholic Drinks for Barbecue

When I’ve had friends over for barbecues recently the most popular drinks have been non-alcoholic ones. I put that down to a myriad of reasons: when it’s really hot, people want to quench their thirst with something they can drink quickly without getting tipsy right away; some people are driving; some people are tee-total (yes really!) and one is pregnant. Also, the drinks I made look and taste great!

 

I already posted the recipe for this non-alcoholic mojito; here are two other ideas.

 

Strawberry Iced Tea

 

I had some strawberry-flavour tea bags and made them up with a little sweetener (Splenda), waited until it had cooled and added more water, some ice cubes and some fresh strawberries.

 

Ginger and Cranberry Fizz

 

This one is also very easy to make and tastes lovely. I had a bottle of ginger beer left over that someone bought to a previous barbecue, and as I don’t like ginger beer I wasn’t suer what to do with it. I also had a carton of cranberry juice in the fridge so I mixed the two together in roughly equal quantities and added some fresh mint leaves. Delicious!

Turkey Wellington

 

 

I had some of my school friends over for a pre-Christmas dinner last weekend which was great fun - we had Christmas crackers containing whistles, that were numbered and sounded at a different pitch, and came with a songsheet so we attempted to play some Christmas carols, which was very funny.

 

I was planning to cook dinner for 9 people - my biggest dinner party ever, but now we have a new house there's a lot more room - but unfortunately one of my friends was ill so she and her husband didn't come.  When I was planning the food though I knew I needed to cook something that would feed a lot of people (aside from one vegan, as I made something different) and wanted to do a turkey as it was Christmas. But I wasn't sure how big a turkey I needed to feed 8 people, and didn't want to faff around with all the side dishes. I also didn't want to cook the exact same thing they would all be eating about ten days later!

 

I had an idea for a turkey dish that would be a one-pot meal (with some easy side dishes), go quite a long way and also not cost as much as a whole turkey - turkey wellington. I had a look online to see if I could find a recipe and was immediately taken with this turkey, brie and cranberry wellington from BBC Good Food. Mine didn't turn out anywhere near as pretty as the picture and I wasn't convinced by the brie in the middle - rather than melt, it held its shape and took on a bit of a rubbery texture. I wonder if there is another cheese that work better in this, though brie is quite Christmassy. So if you decide to give it a go, let me know what you think! Overall it was a really nice dish, a change from roast turkey but still very Christmassy. You could make this at any time of year and you could also make smaller portions - maybe individual wellingtons- with chicken breasts.

 

I bought a large turkey breast from Ocado and cut a slit in the middle, into which I spooned some cranberry sauce and then an entire wedge of brie. You also need to preheat the oven to 180C.

 

 

 

I used ready-made puff pastry to save time. I did make my own stuffing from sausage meat, adding sage, onion and breadcrumbs. I found it easier to roll out the pastry and spread the stuffing over the centre of the pastry than to put the stuffing onto the turkey breast.

 

I also found it easier to cover the turkey breast with two pieces of puff pastry and join them around the sides by rolling over the edges, rather than trying to wrap it in one huge piece of pastry. I finished the pastry with an egg wash (a beaten egg, brushed over, to help it brown) and then covered with foil as it went into the oven, as I didn't want the pastry to cook too quickly. I followed the packet instructions for the turkey and I think in total it took about three hours to cook.

 

Here it is when it came out of the oven.

The wellington was easy to slice and you can see the cheese and cranberry in the middle. One thick slice was plenty per person; I served this with roast potatoes and a selection of vegetables, and of course gravy. The turkey breast I'd bought had been cured so it fell apart easily; the texture was likened by one of my friends to slow-cooked ham!

 

 

It made a great centrepiece for a pre-Christmas dinner and was suitably festive without being exactly the same as what my friends would be eating on December 25th, so I was really pleased with it.

 

 

 

 

Less Sinful Mince Pies

I am sure I am in the minority when I say I have never eaten a mince pie - then again do Americans eat mince pies? I've never been keen on any of the ingredients of mincemeat (which for anyone who doesn't know, does not actually include meat) and so never wanted to try one. I've also been trying to lose weight for years and so it seemed pointless to try a mince pie in case I did like them and it gave me one more thing to overindulge in at Christmas!

When we had a pre-Christmas food tasting at Slimming World it seemed a good opportunity to make mince pies and try a less sinful recipe - they are not completely encased in pastry so would almost certainly be lower in calories than the shop-bought kind. In fact Slimming World says a basic standard mince pie from a supermarket is 12 syns going up to 21 syns to one from a coffee shop, whereas their own recipe for mince tarts - without full lids as shown above - are only three and a half syns each. The pastry is unsweetened which also cuts the calories but hopefully they will still taste good.

The Slimming World recipe just says to use mincemeat for the filling and I wanted to make my own. I decided that Mary Berry's recipe looked good - I trust her for something traditional like this, and I also liked the fact that this recipe didn't use suet as I knew if I bought a whole box I wouldn't use it for anything else.

I followed Mary's recipe but added some chopped French glace cherries and used cherry brandy as my liqueur as I thought that would go well together. It was really easy to make -basically just stir everything together in a pan.

To make the pastry, cut 110g butter or margarine into small cubes and work into 225g plain flour with your fingertips. Add a pinch of salt and gradually add cold water a little at a time until you have a pliable dough.

Wrap the dough in cling film and put in the fridge for half an hour.

Preheat the oven to 175C. Lightly spray some cupcake trays with Cake Release. Roll out the pastry and cut half of it into rounds with a cutter. Press into the indents in the cupcake tray. Spoon in about 1 heaped tsp of mincemeat per tart.

Use a festive cookie cutter to make a shape for the lids - I used Christmas trees.
Place the lids on top and bake for 15 minutes. Sprinkle with icing sugar if desired.

I took these to my Slimming World group but still didn't actually eat one, so I can still say I've never eaten a mince pie!

I'm hosting Alphabakes this month (it's Ros from the More Than Occasional Baker's turn again next month) and the letter is X. We are allowing Christmas recipes so I'm sending in these mince pies.

I'm also sending this to Family Foodies, hosted by Vanesther at Bangers and Mash, and on alternate months Louisa at Eat Your Veg as the theme is festive food.

 This month's Vegetable Palette challenge, hosted by Shaheen at Allotment 2 Kitchen, has as its theme Christmas fruit and veg. My homemade mincemeat uses cranberries, dried fruits, sultanas and raisins, glace cherries - all quite festive!

I'm also sharing these mince tarts with Treat Petite, hosted by Kat at the Baking Explorer and Stuart at Cakeyboi, as they also have a Christmas theme this month.

Festive Cheese Ball with Nuts and Cranberries

 I recently came across the concept of cheese balls or 'cheese bombs' which are typically served over Christmas in America; they consist of soft cheese and other ingredients shaped into a ball. I thought it would be fun to make one, but it did turn out a lot softer than I expected so I'm not sure if I did something wrong. It was tasty, anyway!

I used this recipe on the Tesco website.

You need:

300g soft cheese

2 cups mature Cheddar, grated

2 tbsp red onion, finely chopped

2 tbsp mango chutney

1 tbsp crushed garlic

1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

1/4 cup dried cranberries

1/2 cup chopped nuts

Mix the soft cheese, Cheddar and red onion in a bowl.

Add the mango chutney, garlic and Worcestershire sauce.

Cover and refrigerate overnight.

In another bowl, mix the chopped nuts and cranberries.

At this point you are supposed to be able to form the cheese mixture into a ball, and roll it in the nuts, but I found it far too wet and sticky. Instead I mixed the nuts and cranberries into the cheese mixture, which made it a little less sticky and a bit easier to form into a ball, but it was still extremely soft.

I wrapped it in two layers of clingfilm.

Finally I wrapped it in greaseproof paper and twisted the top - I got two of these out of this quantity of ingredients. It didn't turn out quite as I expected and isn't really something you could give as a gift but it would make a nice starter or addition to the buffet on either Boxing Day or New Year's Eve. You can spread it on crackers or eat with bread sticks.

I am sending this to Feel Good Food, a monthly blogging challenge hosted by Victoria at A Kick at the Pantry Door and guest hosted this month by JibberJabber.The ingredient she has chosen is cranberries.

I am also sharing this with Cheese Please, hosted by Fromage Homage, as the challenge is to make a festive cheese snack.