Cream Cheese

Goats Cheese, Spinach and Bacon Stuffed Mini Sweet Peppers

/ Claire / Leave a comment

I saw these mini peppers at the market and thought they are just asking to be stuffed with something delicious!

I love goats cheese and knew I had some spinach in the freezer, so decided to make a creamy goats cheese and spinach filling and add in some smoked bacon too. The end result was super delicious and just the thing to eat with drinks as it was SO hot over the weekend.

Stuffed peppers

Ingredients:
1 punnet (around 300g) of mini mixed peppers
1 100g pack of French Chevre, or any other goats cheese
100g of full fat cream cheese
100g of frozen spinach, thawed and all the water squeezed out
200g of smoked streaky bacon
Freshly ground black pepper

Method:
Pre heat the oven to 200°C/400°F

Place the bacon on a foil lined backing tray and cook in the oven until cooked through and crisp, leave to cool before snipping into small pieces.

While the bacon is cooking, slice the peppers lengthways, remove any seeds and membranes and place in a oven proof dish.

Mix together the cheeses and spinach with a few grinds of black pepper. Stir in the bacon. I don’t add any extra salt as the cheese and bacon both contain salt.

Using a spoon, fill the pepper halves with the cheese mixture and bake for around 20 minutes until the tops are just staring to catch.

These are delicious served at room temperature with drinks on a hot day, but equally as enjoyable, served warm with red wine on a cold day.

Pepper closeup

Roasted Salmon and Broccoli Quiche

/ Claire / Leave a comment

Roasted hot-smoked salmon, fresh green broccoli with cream cheese and studded with little juicy tomberries. This is absolutely delicious, decadent and full of rich flavours. It’s perfect for a summer lunch or supper, but so good to take on a picnic and any leftovers make for extra special packed lunch.

Quiche

Crust:
300g/10.5oz plain/all-purpose flour
1tsp salt
227g/8oz butter cut into cubes and chilled
1 large egg, beaten
1-2tbs iced water

Filling:
5 extra large eggs
½ pint of double/heavy cream
453g/16oz Hot smoked roasted salmon – broken into large bite sized chunks. You can either cook your own, or buy any of the ready-cooked salmon in the chilled section of the supermarket.
One 180g/6.5oz pack of full fat cream cheese
Small bunch of chives, chopped
1 bunch of broccoli, separated into small bite-sized florets
1 pack of tomberries (125g/4 ½oz). If you can’t get these, you can top the quiche with slices of regular sized tomatoes or halved cherry tomatoes
Pinch of salt
½ tsp black pepper

Method:
Add the flour, salt and butter to a food processor fitted with the steel blade. Pulse until the butter is the size of small peas and add the egg and pulse once or twice. Add the iced water a little a time until the dough just comes together. You might not need all of the water.

Form the dough into a ball, flatten into a disc and wrap in plastic. Leave to chill for 30 minutes.

Roll out the pastry and, without stretching, line the base and sides of a 10inch/25cm tin. Return to the fridge and chill for another 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F

Line the pastry with parchment paper or foil, leaving plenty to come up the sides. Fill with baking beans and place in the oven to blind bake for 15-20 minutes. Take the pastry shell out of the oven, remove the paper and beans and return to the oven for further 5 minutes or until the pastry feels dry. Leave to cool a little before adding the filling.

While the crust is baking, place the broccoli into boiling, salted water for 2 minutes and then plunge into iced water to stop the cooking and set the bright green colour. Drain thoroughly and place onto kitchen paper to absorb any excess water.

Whisk the eggs in a bowl and add the cream, chives, salt and pepper.

Arrange the salmon and broccoli over the crust, ensuring an even distribution and pour the eggs and cream in and around the filling, filling the pastry base. Using a teaspoon, drop little blobs of cream cheese in the quiche and finally scatter over the tomberries

Carefully return to the oven for 30-40 minutes, or until the centre has just set. It will carry on cooking a little after you take it out, so you don’t want to overcook and end up with a dry quiche.

quiche close up

You can serve this warm, but the quiche is at its best cold or room temperature and served simply with a salad and some chilled wine.

slice

Mini Blackberry Cheesecakes with Apple Roses

/ Claire / Leave a comment

Apple roses have been done to death on Pinterest, but they are still delicious, fun to make and look very pretty.  These apple roses are in the middle of mini baked cheesecakes with tart blackberries.

cheesecakes

When I was a child, my uncle used to make elderberry wine.  Every year, one one day in late August, would be the day we would bring our baskets and containers and all go with him.  There was an old, disused railway bank near his house that was covered with brambles and elderberry bushes with millions of lovely purple berries.  He would get his elderberries and make the potent homemade wine and we would pick blackberries to make pies, crumbles, cakes and jam.

I really miss our family trips to forage for those lovely berries, but I still love blackberries to this day.

These mini cheesecakes are ideal for an addition to afternoon tea, a bite-sized dessert or an after-school treat.

Crust:
2 cups/approx 200g of digestive biscuit crumbs
2 tbs sugar
2oz/57g butter – melted

Cheesecake:
16oz/454g full fat and room temperature cream cheese
¼ cup/60g room temperature sour cream
1 cup/237g sugar
2 tsp lemon zest
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 extra large eggs
Blackberry puree – made with 1 heaped cup of fresh blackberries, 2 tbs sugar, heated until the juices run and the sugar dissolves. Push through a fine sieve to remove the seeds and leave to cool completely. You need ¼ cup of the puree. OR you can of course cheat and use ¼ cup of seedless blackberry jam.

Apple Roses:
2 crisp apples, preferably with a rosy red skin. I used Pink Lady apples
1tbs lemon juice
5tbs water

Cinnamon sugar:
¼ cup/60g caster sugar mixed with 2 tsp cinnamon.

Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF and line a muffin tin with 12 cupcake cases.

Mix the crumbs, sugar and butter together and divide the mixture equally into the cupcake cases, pressing down with a spoon for a firm base.

To make the filling, place the cream cheese, sugar, sour cream, lemon zest and vanilla into a stand mixer with the paddle attachment and beat until very creamy, with no lumps.  Add the eggs and beat again until fully combined.  Stir in the blackberry puree, you can fully mix in, or leave as a marbled finish.

Carefully pour the cheesecake mixture into the prepared cupcake cases, coming up to just over half way.

For the roses, cut the apples in half, remove the core and thinly slice into half circles and place in a bowl with the water and lemon juice.  Microwave for around 1 minute until the slices soften and they are flexible.

Depending on how thick you have cut your slices, you need around 10-12 for each rose. Lay them out on a board, overlapping each slice with the next.  Sprinkle with a little cinnamon sugar and roll up from one end the other as tightly as possible.  Place into the waiting case, the rose will ‘bloom’ and fill the mini cheesecake.  Repeat until you have a rose in each one and top with a little sprinkle of the cinnamon sugar.

Bake at 180ºC/350ºF for around 25 minutes until the centres are just set and allow to fully cool.  Chill for at least 2 hours before serving.

Apple rose closeup