Meals to Share

It was my grandparents 75th birthday this month, so we had a family gathering in the weekend to celebrate this. We each brought some food to share, so I thought you lovely folks in blogland might like to make these too :)

Firstly, I made fabulous savoury cheese rolls.  Super simple to make, and oh so tasty!  All you need is bread (toast slice), evaporated milk, onion soup mix, cheese and toothpicks.

Mix your evaporated milk with soup mix, and add grated cheese until you have a thickish consistency.  I cut one crust of each slice of bread off for the centre of the roll.  Spread mix onto each slice of bread - you don't need too much, otherwise it gets tricky to roll.  Roll each piece up starting with the edge with no crust.  Place on baking tray and if it doesn't stay rolled up, use a toothpick to keep it in place, I find that putting it on an angle helps.  I also spread just a wee bit of marg or butter on top and then place in the oven to bake until crispy.  Really tasty on their own, or dipped into some nice thick soup ... mmmmmm ...


I also made up a recipe for Lemon Meringue Cupcakes :)  These went down a treat!
All you need to do is make a standard lemon cupcake recipe, bake it like normal and let it cool.  Then you want to get a knife and put a small slit in the centre of each one (you don't have to do this, but it makes it a bit easier) and using an icing bag and standard icing tip, insert some lemon curd - push icing tip in as far as you can then as you squeeze, slowly pull it out.

Make meringue - 3egg whites, 1/4C caster sugar, 1/2tsp vanilla essence - beat egg whites until stiff, slowly add the caster sugar (1Tbsp at a time) until thick and glossy, stir in the vanilla. You could probably pipe it on, but I just dolloped it on top of each cupcake, mainly cause that's how I make a meringue pie.  Pop cupcakes back in oven at 180C for about 10 minutes, or until meringue is starting to colour.

Everyone who tried one thought they were delicious, and exactly like Lemon Meringue Pie :)


Home made pizza is another favourite meal to make when sharing with others.  There are so many different recipes that I use, but the one I did recently went like this:

Roll out pizza dough, leaving some extra hanging over the edge of pizza tray.  Spread some cream cheese and tomato relish over base, and place grated cheese all around the edge.  Roll up the outside edges over top of cheese to make a stuffed crust.
Chop some ham and sprinkle over top, add some whole slices of salami as well as some chopped up pieces.  Add a sprinkle of bacon and some sliced tomatoes.  Sprinkle grated cheese overtop and then swirl bbq sauce over cheese.  Bake until bubbling.  You can also add some extra chunks of cream cheese on top of the grated cheese for an extra cheesy pizza :)

The other recipe I wanted to share with you, is not so much for sharing - I mean you could make it as a meal for your family, but it's not something you would take to a pot luck type of situation.

Eggs Benedict with Hollandaise Sauce

English Muffins
Bacon
Eggs
3 egg yolks
a splash of white wine vinegar
100g melted butter
splash of lemon juice
salt and pepper

Basically cook bacon the way you like it, and toast the english muffins.  To poach your eggs, you want to get the water up to a boil, add a splash of vinegar, then turn off the element.  Crack your eggs close to the surface of the water, the heat of the water will cook them perfectly without breaking them up with the bubbles of boiling water.
To make hollandaise sauce, beat egg yolks until frothy, add splash of white wine vinegar and beat some more.  Place over a saucepan with a little boiling water in it - don't let water touch bottom of bowl, and keep heat low so you don't scramble the eggs.  Keep beating.  Slowly add melted butter, a few drops at a time.  It will thicken.  Once all the butter is combined with eggs, take off the heat and season with salt and pepper and add lemon juice to taste.
Spread a little marg on your muffins, place bacon over top, eggs on them (to avoid getting your muffins wet, dap your spoon/fish slice on a teatowel before placing eggs on plate) and then you pour some sauce over top.
Seriously delicious!  It may sound like a lot of work, but it's really not that hard, and it's sooooo worth it!  My son said it was the best egg meal I have ever made :)

So there you go, some great meal ideas for those pot luck occasions.  Hopefully you will enjoy them as much as we did :)

Happy cooking!