sheidaart

Butternut squash and sweet potato tortilla

Ingredients
350g packet butternut and sweet potato cubes (from Waitrose)
1 onion, finely chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
4 large free-range eggs, beaten
100g vegetarian feta, crumbled
Bunch of fresh flatleaf parsley, chopped
3 tbsp toasted pine nuts
Green salad to serve
Method
1. Preheat the grill to medium-high. Put the butternut and sweet potato cubes in a pan of boiling water and simmer for 5-6 minutes until tender, then drain.
2. Meanwhile, cook the onion in the olive oil over a medium heat in a small frying pan for 5-10 minutes until tender. Add the butternut and sweet potato cubes, turn the heat to medium-high and cook for 2 minutes until they turn lightly golden. Pour in the beaten eggs, feta, parsley and pine nuts and cook for 5-10 minutes until the underside of the tortilla is golden brown (use a spatula to lift the edge to check).
3. Place under the grill and cook for 5-10 minutes until the tortilla is fully set and the top is golden. Invert onto a chopping board, cut into wedges and serve with a green salad.

Edible Teacups

Ingredients:
12 sugar ice cream cones
12 peanut butter cups
1/2 cup melting chocolate (like Wilton's)
12 white Oreos (or other cookies)
6 tiny-twist pretzels
chocolate or vanilla pudding or yogurt (to fill)

1. Use a serrated knife to cut off the bottoms of the ice cream cones. Slow and stead wins the race here. Just be gentle and work deliberately. Obviously have some extras on hand in case a few break.

2. To make the handle, use the serrated knife again to cut the tops of the pretzels off. Again, if you break a few, no worries, just eat those and move along.

3. Melt the chocolate according to the package directions. I did mine slowly in the microwave until it was nice and smooth. You could use regular milk chocolate for this recipe, but I found that the melting chocolate (like you get from a craft store) really worked wonders. It melted smoothly and hardened quickly to make this novelty baking project a real breeze. I think regular chocolate would make it a bit more tricky, but certainly do-able.

4. Line up your cookies.

5. Dot each cookie with some chocolate and place a peanut butter cup upside-down on top.

6. Dip the bottom of the cone into the chocolate and set on top of the peanut butter cup.

7. Hold the cone for a few seconds so that the chocolate hardens in place.

8. Look to see if there are any holes or open spaces in your "tea cups" and fill them with chocolate, so that your filling won't seep out.

9. Attach the handles by dotting chocolate on both ends of the pretzel and holdings it onto the side of the cone until it is set.

10. We found these mini plastic spoons as the Christmas Tree Shop that were perfect!

11. When you are ready to serve, fill the cups with pudding, yogurt, or cannoli filling and enjoy!

Mary Poppins and the Feed-the-Birds Lady.

Coffee Birjandi

Neely's Chicken Salad in Tomato Cups

Ingredients

1 rotisserie chicken, skinless and meat shredded or diced
1/2 small red onion, diced
1 shallot, chopped
2 tablespoons freshly chopped tarragon leaves
1 celery rib, chopped
1 cup slivered almonds
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
3/4 cup mayonnaise
3 cups halved seedless red grapes
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
6 large beefsteak tomatoes
1 head butter lettuce
Directions
Mix first 10 ingredients in a large bowl.

Core tops of tomatoes with a paring knife. Using a melon baller, scoop out the insides of the tomatoes. Lay a leaf of lettuce in each tomato so it peeks out the top. Fill the tomatoes with a large scoop of the chicken salad and serve.