Recipes

Spreads, Dips and Dressings

If there's nothing else around I take a packet of Arnott's Sesame Vitawheat Crackers to go with any of these, or some thick cut chippies, but use your imagination, you don't have to copy everything I do. (I also make quite a decent dipping bread out of a focaccia mix by rolling it out to 5mm thick or less and putting it straight in the oven. And fresh naan bread or barbecue bread with any of these is wonderful.)

Easy Spread Butter Mix: A truly simple blend of butter, olive oil and water that will out-perform any easy-spread butter blend or margarine on the market and without breaking the bank.

Alison Host and Dave's Green Pea Guacamole: Goes to show that frozen peas can be used for more than just packing a sprained ankle. An ideal choice for those bring a plate functions when avocados are $5 each. This is the recipe I get asked most often for, along with the barbecue bread that goes with it.

Dave's Hummus: A fast (45 minutes from thinking about it) chana-based garlicky, lemony hummus, tasty and a staple snack for the family vegetarian.

Tzatziki: A tasty combination of cucumber, yoghurt and garlic, with herbs and lemon juice, blended, and strained overnight to create the required thickness.

Lemon Cheese: I remember making something like this when I was about 11. About as simple as it gets in the cheese-making field, and makes a pleasantly lemony spread about the texture of a cream cheese. Good for crackers or fresh bread.

Dynamite Dressing: An attention-getting dressing to accompany a rough green salad in dishes such as mjeddrah. Will keep for ages in the fridge if you don't use it all at once.

Woman's Day Encyclopaedia of Cooking Dressing: This is the dressing recommended to go with the salad for the Mjeddrah. It's OK, refreshing, and now and again I make it in a nod to the original author of the WDEC mjeddrah recipe. But usually we do the dynamite dressing.

Dave's Pumpkin Dip: Somewhere between pumpkin soup and hummus in the bigger picture. Simple and quite fast to prepare.

Baba Ghanoush: We have used this as a base for a number of tasty dips. Once you begin to think of it as another in the hummus family you enlarge the limits considerably as far as flavour, texture and ingredients go and the world is your oyster, clam, mussel, scallop, etc.

Egg and Celery Dip: Good with crackers, or alternatively to line a fresh bread roll along with some shaved salami.

The Great New Zealand Salad Dressing : This is the salad dressing New Zealand's baby boomers were raised on, be it lettuce salad, potato salad, or coleslaw; and the same recipe is still printed on the label of the Highlander Sweetened Condensed Milk can. These days it goes down well for its novelty value, and at least one of Charlie's mates is a great fan. I know this because the jar joins Charlie's mess left behind on the sink bench whenever he's visiting. Keeps well in the fridge in a sealed container.

Ellen's Salad Dressing: Ellen jotted down the general principles while she was watching a Jamie Oliver tv presentation. Drizzled over a bed of baby spinach leaves on which rested a crumbed chicken dish. Wow!