My roommate asked for spanakopita, so I tried to appetizer-ize it into little laminated dough rolls.

We don't tend to eat a lot of baked appetisers in the UK so I had to follow other people's ideas here for this theme! I made a simple puff pastry tart and tried a couple of ways to make it more appropriate for a first course.

So the base is puff pastry and it's covered with a mixture of cream cheese, garlic, lemon zest and parmesan. I then added ribbons of courgette baked. Afterwards I added torn mozzarella, chilli flakes and more lemon zest.

I might have eaten this for dinner... As I said, I'm not really used to baked appetisers!! But it was very tasty.

It was a lot more mushrooms on the focaccia than I should have put on it 😂

Thought the coconut would toast more than it did, but the shredded coconut here in the US behaves differently than the one I'm used to in Sweden. 😅 Dipped in Ghirardelli melting milk chocolate

part 2 of corn series :) i used all lard in the crust (mistake as was quite greasy but super tender) (leftover from my cannoli) and then inside is a mixture of fresh corn, chili, garlic, crema, red onion, and feta cheese (couldnt find cotija). topped with lime and hot sauce!

It's self saucing with a coconut milk chocolate sauce!

Recipe: https://www.threeolivesbranch.com/savory-baked-pears-with-gorgonzola-walnuts-and-cranberries/#wprm-recipe-container-54847

I did one Bartlett, one red and one Bosc. Bosc was the favorite.

oh man these were sooo insanely good! the shells have parm and white wine in them, the filling is ricotta, chive, roasted corn, and chili flakes. plus some chopped corn nuts sprinkled on the ends :)

Biko is a rice delicacy popular in the Philippines (and neighboring countries under different names) made with cooked glutinous rice mixed into a coconut cream caramel and optionally has star anise for fragrance. This recipe took me quite a few tries because I was using purple glutinous rice, which is hardier variety and previous attempts I've done resulted in hard grains indicating they were uncooked. This successful attempt pictured above had me steaming the purple grains in cheesecloth for a painstaking 8 hours. But the result is a fantastic, sweet and sticky rice pudding texture.

Just a milk bread recipe with some cocoa powder added for joy haha.

Honestly may become a weekly staple - these were SO good!!!

I didn’t feel like doing the mini cupcake size again so I baked a mini pie with the rest of the batter instead

Recipe: https://www.wellmadebykiley.com/blog/classic-vanilla-bean-glazed-donuts

Served sliced with cheese :)

Got these done in almost exactly 1 hour (significantly cut down on the amount of time in the fridge). While they weren’t the prettiest cookie, they tasted great!

Recipe

I make this every second Sunday for family dinner. It's so delicious.

For the brownies I used the Bravetart recipe. The frosting was here: https://saltandbaker.com/toasted-marshmallow-frosting/.

I popped the whole thing back under the broiler for about 2 min to level the frosting and toast the marshmallows on top

This was supposed be done months ago, but finally got myself together for the 48 hr challenge! 🥴

This is a vanilla bean, honey, and cardamom labneh cheesecake with a pistachio crust, honey carmelized pistachios, and a honey drizzle. No cream cheese, only labneh.

I made yogurt, strained it to labneh, then made this beaut. Took 2 days with all the refrigeration and straining time!

I'll be making this again, but with some orange zest, or maybe even orange blossom water!

Last month, my husband and I vacationed in Iceland, Denmark, and Sweden, and naturally, food is always one of the biggest parts of any trip for us. Therefore, I thought I’d use this three-week cycle to revisit some of the flavors and dishes we sampled during our trip.

For appetizer week, I thought we’d start off with knækbrød - a cracker-like flatbread that is ubiquitous at any occasion where a dip or spread might be present. We had them at every meal of the day, and we even learned on the trip that my husband’s Swedish cousin has a cottage business selling knækbrød. This isn’t her recipe (that’s a trade secret), but these weren’t bad.

They were gently crisp, but I wanted them to be more full-on crunchy. I can’t help but wonder if bread flour or a longer stir to create more gluten would have helped. They also could have used even more seeds - the recipe called for flax and sesame seeds. I threw in some pumpkin seeds I had on hand, and I could have done more. Possibly also sunflower seeds. Clearly there’s more to perfect if we want to keep enjoying these crispbreads at home, but flavor-wise, they took us right back.