Sweet and Savoury Puff Pastry Bites

Puff pastry is always a great thing to use if you want to whip up a really tasty, quick and easy bite to eat. Its a good idea to have a roll of ready made puff pastry in the freezer so you can make something last minute.

My friend Rosie had some puff pastry that she needed using up, so we made these little puff pastry bites. We made both sweet and savoury ones, and they're good as you can put pretty much whatever takes your fancy inside!

We made a selection of, Banana with chocolate chunks/ peanut butter, raspberry with chocolate chunks, and Gouda cheese with spiced chutney.

Recipe: (makes 14)

- 1 pack of ready rolled puff pastry

- Little bit of milk for glazing

Fillings:

(You can choose any combinations you like, or whatever you have in the cupboard/fridge!)

- 1/2 Banana

- Chocolate chunks

- Nutella/ Peanut Butter

- A few Raspberries

- Chocolate chunks

- Gouda cheese, cut in to little cubes

- A few tsp of Chutney/ Pickle

To make:

- Lay out the puff pastry and cut the pastry in half and then in to strips. You should have 14 rectangular shapes. Lightly score a mark to half the rectangles so you can see where to fold them in half. 

- Put your chosen fillings on to one side of the pastry and then fold over the pastry to make a little parcel. With the back of a fork press down along the edges to seal the parcel. Brush with some milk.

- Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes at 200c, until they are golden brown on the top and bottom. Allow them to cool a little before serving as the filling will be very hot!

- Enjoy the sweet parcels with ice cream or custard as a pudding. And the cheesy parcels work well with a little salad as a starter or light main course.

- Enjoy!

The puff pastry cut in to 14 rectangles

Two of the fillings

The finished golden brown parcels

xXx

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chunk Cookies

I absolutely LOVE peanut butter! So when I came across this recipe on Averie Cooks website, I knew they had to be made!

 I then took them with me to my friend Ginny's BBQ, and they certainly went down well. They are so easy to make, have a wonderful soft and chewy consistency and are also gluten free which is always a plus! 

Recipe: (makes 12 medium sized cookies)

- 1 cup of peanut butter

- 1 cup of light brown sugar

- 1 egg

- 1 tbsp vanilla extract

- 1 tsp baking powder

- 50g dark chocolate, chopped in to chunks (can use milk/white also)

How to make:

- Preheat the oven to 180c, and line and grease 2 baking trays.

- Measure out and then put all of the ingredients, apart from the chocolate chunks, in to a large bowl and stir vigourously (as the mix will be quite stiff) until combined. Then add the chocolate chunks and stir them in.

- Put the mixture on to the baking trays, making 12 blobs of the mixture. Space them evenly apart as they spread when they are in the oven. Bake for about 8 minutes, but keep an eye on them as they can over bake very quickly. 

- Take them out of the oven when they are golden brown on top, they will still be slightly squidgey. Let them cool on a wire rack and then tuck in! 

Note: They are best enjoyed on the day you baked them, as they tend to get a little chewy overnight. But they could probably be refreshed by popping them in the oven for a few minutes.

Photo how to:

I used Waitrose smooth peanut butter

All the ingredients in the bowl before mixing

After mixing- it is quite a stiff mixture

The mixture spaced out on a lined baking tray

And the finished cookies! Yummy!

xXx

Peanut Chicken Skewers

I recently had some friends over for dinner and I made some delicious Peanut Chicken skewers from Jamie Oliver. The recipe can be found here. The skewers are very flavoursome and have a lovely Thai/ Asian taste.

These are best marinated in advance so that you can get a real depth of flavour, so marinate in the morning so they are ready for dinner! 

Recipe: (makes 6 large skewers)

- 3 Chicken breasts

- 3 tbsp crunchy peanut butter (Whole earth is good!)

- Good handful of coriander or parsley

- 1 small chili (depending on how spicy you like it)

- Thumb size piece of Ginger

- 1 Garlic clove

- Glug of Soy sauce

- 2 Limes, zest and juice

To make:

- Put the peanut butter, chilli, coriander, ginger, soy sauce, garlic and lime in to a food processor and whizz until combined. Add a little water if the mixture seems too thick.

- Chop the chicken breasts in to reasonably large chunks in a bowl and then add the peanut mixture. Rub in the marinade with your hands to make sure all the chicken is covered. Leave to marinate in the fridge for several hours, or overnight.

- Take the marinated chicken out of the fridge and pierce them on to skewers

- Preheat the grill to high, and then grill them for about 25 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through and peanut sauce has gone golden and slightly crispy.

- Serve with salad and roasted potatoes. Enjoy!

The chicken marinating.

Here are the chicken skewers part way through grilling.

Here are some close ups of the chicken once it has been taken off the skewers!

Enjoy!

X