Savoury blue cheese biscuits

I have a great weakness to Nigella L.’s recipes. As soon as I open her book I’m stroke with warmness and homely atmosphere you can see on each single page. When I was greedily looking through the newest edition of her book (polish translation was edited this year but original one is dated back in 2000) I couldn’t make up my mind and decide which recipe I should start with – everything looks tempting! Finally I have chosen blue cheese biscuits, which I seasoned my way. Can the snack consisting mainly of cheese and butter be bad?

Ingredients (makes around 40)
6 oz (175 g) blue cheese
3,5 oz (100 g) soft butter
1 egg yolk + 1 egg for glaze
4,5 oz (125 g) wheat flour
1,7 oz (50 g) corn flour
¼ teaspoon salt
freshly grinded pepper
freshly grinded nutmeg


Method
Combine cheese, butter and egg yolk and knead wheat and corn flour, salt and spices (you can also use a food processor). When the dough comes together, wrap it with clingfilm and let it rest in the fridge for 30 min. Roll out the dough to roughly 0,25 inch/ 0,5 cm in thickness, and cut out any shapes you want. Put them on to a lined baking sheet and glaze them with the whisked egg, also you may sprinkle them with pepper or cumin. Bake for 15 minutes until golden brown.

Granola bars

I really love healthy desserts! Although to make those granola bars you need to use butter, they are still healthier than a bag of candies, don’t you think? I feel much better when I know I just have eaten nuts, dry fruit and granola!


Ingredients (make 12 granola bars)
2 cups oatmeal
1 cup dry fruit (raisins, apricots, cranberries, pineapple…)
¼ cup nuts (i.e. walnuts)
5 tbsp butter
4 tbsp honey
2 tbsp wholemeal flour
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon vanilla essence


Method
In a saucepan melt butter and honey. Pour the melted mixture over the dry ingredients mixed in a bowl. Spoon the mixture into a lined cake pan (about 10 inch/20 cm) and press down. Bake for about 25 min. at 360F/ 180 oC. Cool before cutting into bars. The easiest is to cut the bars with a bread knife.

Spicy nuts

I must admit that I can’t walk by the special supermarket’s offers without buying something. With such an impulse I bought 2 packages of nut mix. As 2 bags of different kinds of nuts were in my kitchen I had to make something with them. Firstly I wanted to make nuts in caramel but finally I made them spicy with cayenne pepper!
I was inspired by the recipe from joythebaker.com


Ingredients
about 2 cups nut mixture (walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds, cashews)
2 teaspoons cayenne pepper
2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup sugar
2 tbsp water
oil


Method
In a bowl mix all ingredients, transfer onto a lined and greased with oil baking tray. Spread the nuts evenly on the tray. Bake at 320 F/160 oC (toss them a few times) until shiny shells come out on the nuts about 15 min.