I’m slacking off here, aren’t I? Not one post in well over a month!!

Nevermind, it is a blog after all. My own blog at that. Meaning no shoulds, or shouldn’ts. No demands, and certainly no deadlines! We all have plenty of those in our lives as it is, and creating new self-imposed ones, would not be the smartest thing to do.

Besides, this blog is about cooking yes, but it is also about healing. And God knows I’ve been doing lots of both. The cooking and the healing I mean.

There are no specific explanations as to how and when healing does happen, but I suspect its equal parts: time and choice. Yes choice. Sure time is needed to heal any sort of wound, but I’m beginning to think that choice has a lot to do with it as well. Having had enough of being at the bottom of the well, with hardly any air to breath, there comes a day when you say to yourself enough is enough, its now time to get back to “life”. That precious gift that we have all been given. Accepting it, consciously I mean, is both a privilege and an honour!

Back to cooking.

Yes, I’ve been slacking in the posting department, but never in my cooking. Its part of my life. A part that gives me immense joy! Since I started this blog, I got into the habit of taking pictures as I go along. I take the pictures on my phone, and then delete them as they’re posted. Not having posted in a while, means that I now have an over-abundance of pictures and recipes! Which should I post first?!

My big love has always been appetizers. And nibbles. All sorts of finger foods, that go well with drinks, and chats, and friends. And I’ve done quite a bit of those, these past few weeks. So let me start with that.

Beef & Walnut Pastry Swirls:

Actually the idea of this recipe, was inspired by the famous Lebanese/Syrian/Armenian Lahm-B’Ajeen. Its been a lot on my mind lately… This one is a lot faster ofcourse, not to mention way easier, but the taste is almost identical.

Ingredients:

¼ kg ground beef

1 medium onion

6 sun dried tomatoes

1 cup walnuts

1 large sheet of puff pastry

1 egg beaten (for glazing)

Method:

Chop onion and saute in a bit of olive oil till translucent

add ground beef, salt, pepper, and brown

set aside

chop sun dried tomatoes

chop walnuts medium ruff

open your sheet of pastry and distribute your filling one at a time,starting with the ground beef mixture, then the sun dried tomatoes, than the walnuts

roll up jelly roll fashion

wrap well and refrigerate for a couple of hours

slice into 1cm thick slices

place in a mince pie tray lined up with appropriate size paper holders

brush with beaten egg

bake in a pre-heated 180 centigrade oven until golden brown

pop out of the tray while still hot and place on counter to cool off

once cool you can freeze them if you wish and re-heat when needed before serving

I love to prepare nibbles ahead of time and freeze ready for unexpected company.

Enjoy!