Finger Food

Hi Y'all!

After we got almost used to living in Malta and already know some people, we wanted to do a little get together for them. A new year's reception so to say, because around the holidays everybody was so busy that we didn't want to add more stress to the mix with our invite. Thus we had them here last Saturday for some drinks and snacks, and I wanted to share with you guys what we had. 

Btw we were ten adults and three children, and because some of them - like us - like to eat vegetarian and are open to vegan alternatives, I made vegetarian food only. As one person is lactose intolerant I should have prepared more vegan stuff, but for next time I know better. 

Surely I know that finger food might cause more work than a three course meal, but I didn't want to be glued to the stove that night, and the advantage of cold snacks is, that you can prepare them beforehand and sometimes even freeze them. Besides, the atmosphere is more casual and you need less space for plates :-) 

Please find below the actors in order of appearance: 

I started on Tuesday with preparing a carrot orange soup - unfortunately there is no picture. Basically I diced carrots, potatoes and onions and sauteed them in olive oil. Added orange juice and vegetable stock and let that simmer for 30 minutes. Also I added a piece of ginger roughly the size of my thumb, but removed that before blending the whole thing. I seasoned the pureed soup with an oriental spice mixture called "Ras el Hanout" which went perfectly with it. After cooling I put the soup in bags and placed it in the freezer. 

On Wednesday I baked two kinds of vegan muffins. One was with cocoa and Coca Cola to make it extra fluffy, and one - a classic - with apples and cinnamon. After cooling down they went into the freezer as well - and luckily there is a picture: 

Furthermore, I soaked some cashew nuts over night in order to turn them into vegan cream cheese and vegan feta cubes on Thursday. I served the cream cheese together with olives, crackers and edam (not vegan) on a grazing board, and the feta cubes made it on some little skewers together with cherry tomatoes. 

Any party needs meat balls, right? For my vegetarian version I mixed and then pan-fried oat flakes, eggs, onions and shredded cheese. They are delish either warm or cold, and the size is variable also. For the party I made them roughly the size of table tennis balls. 

In parallel I made a Zucchini cake in the oven, which is also yummy either warm or cold. Insanely easy: Grate 500 g of zucchini, add one diced onion, 5 eggs, 200 g flour and 150 g shredded cheese. Mix and season everything, spread on a baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius. 

Afterwards I mixed a yoghurt dip which I served with veggie sticks on Saturday. The children devoured them, although I expected them to stick to the candy I had for them. Pleasantly surprised! 

Then I prepared tortilla roll-ups. Basically I took tortilla wraps, brushed them with herbal cream cheese and topped that with sun-dried tomatoes and olives. Rolled that up and let cool in the fridge. The next day, I only had to cut that into slices and put on toothpicks. But to be honest, they were nice, but I prefer the version with cream cheese and smoked salmon...

The last thing I did on Friday night was hard boiling some eggs and starting a yeast dough to have that rise in the fridge over night. 

Besides laying the table and arranging the food, all I had to do on Saturday were things which were best fresh out of the oven. Thus I combined the yeast dough with a healthy amount of olive oil, sea salt and rosemary and made some focaccia bread - went very well with the soup. 

I removed the yolks from the hard-boiled eggs and mixed them to a paste with mayonnaise, mustard and spices. That went into a dressing bag and from there back into the whites - deviled eggs = classic 70s party snack... 

That was followed by some puff pastry action. On one of them I spread green pesto and red on the other one. The red one was cut into strips and twisted, and the green one was rolled up and cut into slices. Both of them received a generous sprinkling of shredded cheese and went onto their merry ways into the oven. Quick and easy! 

Please excuse the cling wrap on some of the fotos. Actually I don't like it, but the prior tenants left it here and thus I used it. And I didn't have time to make proper pictures when everything was ready and uncovered. But this is what it looked like:

Was a very nice evening!

Stay save and sane and celebrate and parties as they come!!!