Baked pineapple with almonds & honey

Even the most simple dishes need a recipe sometimes. How else are you going to come up with some of these things? Baked pineapple with almonds & honey is, well, baked pineapple, with honey and almonds. There’s really nothing more to it. I found a recipe in a new cooking book I got, and it was called ‘Abricots with honey out of the oven’. These were, abricots, with honey poored over them, almonds on top (I think they should have mentioned this in the title), and then baked in the oven. It seems way to simple to devote two pages of a recipes book to. But then again, I wouldn’t have come up with it unless I saw a picture with such an imaginative title.
The recipe for the baked abricots also metion sprinkling some cinnamon or nutmeg over them. I could of course say I purposefully left this out on my pineapples, but I really just forgot. I didn’t bother looking at the book for such a recipe. The pineapples tasted quite fine and I got approval of my family. I wouldn’t know what it would taste like with cinnamon or nutmeg over it, but feel free to try!


Can you see the heart in the back??!

Ingredients:
Canned pineapple
Almond slices
Honey

1. Let the pineapple-juice leak from the pineapple and put the rings on a baking sheet.
2. Sprinkle the almond slices over the pineapple rings and drop the honey over that. If you have a squirting bottle like I did you can drench it over pineapple rings.
3. Preheat the oven to 150-200 degrees Celsius (300-390 Fahrenheit) and bake the pineapples for about 6-12 minutes until the almonds are golden brown. When done, put the rings on a nice plate and serve!

I told you it’s easy right? It's really nice to serve with some ice cream as well. You can really make this look pretty on a plate! I tried to make the pictures look nice again this time. Hopefully you like them!



A glass of pineapple juice to go with it, my dear?

Macarons

I’ve seen some really beautiful pictures of macarons and really wanted to make them myself. Especially since macarons seem to come in so many different kinds, tasted and even shapes. There’s an infinite number of colours and tastes that can be combined and being able to make them seems to give a lot of space for your own imagination. Plus they look delicious too. There’s only one problem I’ve encounter so far, which apart from finding a good recipe is that it consists out of the almonds. I’ve tried making macarons twice. The first time had completely failed. I over-baked them and they were too dry and burned afterwards, but nevertheless good enough for a cake bottom that next day. Another problem then was the ground almonds. I just chopped them in my mixer, but at some point the little bits didn't seem to get any smaller. The second time, I had almond powder. The problem here was, it was made for drinks and contained more sugar than actual almonds. I just wildly guessed a combination of powdered sugar and my almond powder to make something that looked like macarons and my sister quite liked it. She said it was way better than the stuff we got from the shops, but I can’t recall ever tasting macarons. I should really get some somewhere I think. Try out a few different tastes and see if I can get any farther then. Until then, we’re going to have to do with this recipe!



Ingredients:
45 gram eggs (aged for at least 24 hours)
granulated sugar (no more than 50 grams)
100 grams almond powder
50 grams powdered sugar

1. Whip the eggs with an electric mixer until it’s foamy. Add one spoon of granulated sugar at a time until the mixture is thick, white and creamy like a meringue mixture.
2. Sift the almond powder and powdered sugar together and fold into the egg & sugar – mixture.
3. Use a piping bag or simply spoon to make big dots onto a baking sheet and bake the macarons at 150 degrees Celsius (or 300 Fahrenheit) for about 5-7 minutes.
4. When they’re cooled down, take two macarons of the same size, and royally spread a filling on one of them and put the other on top. Done!

One of the things I totally dislike about this recipe, and I think it counts for all macarons, is that you need aged eggs. You actually have to plan making macarons and can’t decide to make some in the glory of some baking moment you might have. For someone like me that always decides a few minutes before what to make, how and where, this really doesn’t help. I’m glad with they way they came out though, especially since it was the second time and I still didn’t really know what I was doing. Somewhere I still doubt this is the way macarons should be. But the almond powder goes very well with milk as a hot drink.


Can you see the ones I put jam with mascarpone inbetween and the ones with chocolate icing inbetween?

Tips for the macarons:
- Draw identical circles all over your baking sheet – in a nice orderly way – to mark where the macarons are going to be. This will really help if you can’t seem to get the macarons in the same sizes.
- Get some inspiration from places for ideas for tastes and colours and fillings. I like to use flickr to find pictures of things. The recipe I used (and changed quite a lot) came from bakerella. She’s very good at making pictures and everything she makes looks so delicious! I have a whole folder of pictures of things I found on google, flickr or anywhere else with nice ideas and things I’d like to make. Even random pictures of beautiful dresses and flowers can help inspire your bakings. You can never be creative enough!
- You can create little pictures on the macarons if you have two batches of a different colour and apparently you can add little things like lavender inside. (Oh, lavender macarons, that just sounds too delicious.)

Little lunch - sandwich mania!

I made this for dinner, to be real honest, and not for lunch. But it would be way more perfect for a lunch or a high tea party. I’ve thought of putting tooth picks or so in them so they’d be easier to pick up and eat. I decided against it as I didn’t have any and I think the little sandwiches might be too heavy for a little toothpick and fall off about immediately.
I made four different types of sandwiches with the things I had in my house. Most of them I already tried a few times before but I did have some help from the sweet Davie and added a new kind!



Tosty-type sandwich

Ingredients:
Cheese (I used some strong Belgium type)
Chicken fillet
Ketchup
Slices of bread

1. Use the ketchup like you would use butter on two slices of bread. Put the chicken fillet and cheese on one of the slices and the other slice of bread on top. Cut the bread into little squares.

Variations:
You can use curry or mayonnaise if you dislike ketchup or completely leave this out if you don’t like it. You can substitute the chicken fillet with ham if you like. Cut the crust off if you wish and cut the sandwich in little squares (or triangles or hearts or just be creative!).

Smoky salmon delight

Ingredients:
Smoked salmon
Lettuce
Cream cheese
Slices of bread

1. Take a slice of bread, spread the cream cheese over it. Smoked salmon on top, cover with lettuce and add the last slice of bread. Cut the bread into little squares and take the crust off if you like.

Variations:
I haven’t actually used cream cheese when I made the pictures, but about every other time I made this I have. Philadelphia (basil) is a nice one to use, but I like to make my own: creamy herb paste.

Cheesy sweetness

Ingredients:
Port-Salut (a soft & mild French cheese)
Berry jam
Slices of bread

1. Spread the jam on one slice of bread and place slices of the cheese on top. Add the other slice on top of that and cut the sandwich into little squares and cut the crust off if you wish. (If you do: the other way around might be wiser.)

Variations:
I used a mixed berry jam for this, but obviously you can change the type of jam. I’d stick to berry-jams, for some reason I cant see mango jam or strawberry jam working with cheese so well. Of course you can also variate the cheese. A very nice combination is Camembert or Brie with cranberry jam.

Tasty tuna sandwich

Ingredients:
Tuna (tuna salad or canned)
Lettuce
Slices of bread

1. Take a slice of bread and ‘spread’ it with the tuna (the tuna, not all the oil or juice). Add some lettuce and put another slice of bread on top. Cut it into little squares and done!

Variations:
I’ve heard mayonnaise goes real nice with canned tuna, so why not add some? If you have al of trouble with the juice or oil when using canned tuna it might be wise to first drain this, before using the tuna. A nice idea is to add a bit of sweet corn



Other nice things to put on sandwiches might be eggs or radish. A combination of blue cheese, pear and walnuts might be nice? Spreading cheese, bacon and grapes? Or cream cheese with strawberries? Ham, fig and lettuce? Eggs, mayonnaise, pepper&salt, maybe some ketchup with lettuce? You name it! There must an infinite number of combinations and sweet things you can put on sandwiches.
If you want to know some nice books for making a high tea or want to know more recipes for little bites and such I’d recommend Susannah Blake. I have two of her books called “afternoon tea” and “high tea party” which are both full of nice ideas for a light lunch with loads of different little bites, or for sweet cakes and cookies for tea or small things to serve on a party. I love the pictures in the book as well and it all looks very –what is the word- posh and rich-like? I seriously couldn’t cook from a book without pictures, even though what I make might look completely different. I need to know what I'm making and I need something to look forward too right?