Dips for dinner

After a good work out, there's nothing like chilling with friends around a table of dips for a good chat and relaxing evening. Healthy food with good flavour is just the cherry on the top! On the menu: beetroot, hummus, and avocado dips.

Beetroot dip

Ingredients

One can on sliced beetroot
1/3 to 1/2 a cup of Danish feta (to taste)
2 Cloves of garlic
Fresh lemon juice from 1/3 lemon (add to taste)
Salt and pepper to taste

Optional:
3 tbsp Pine nuts or chopped walnuts

Hummus

Ingredients

One can of chick peas, skin removed (removing the skin doesnt take too long, they easily pop off)
Fresh lemon juice from 1/3 lemon (add to taste)
1 Spring onion, chopped
1/8 cup Sour cream
1 Clove of garlic, halved
1 Green chilli, pips removed (you can either put this in the with all the other ingredients or finely chop and mix in afterwards)
Salt and pepper to taste

• For the betroot dip and hummus: Pop all your ingredients in a food processor with a metal blade, plate up, and it's ready to serve.

Avocado dip

Ingredients

1/2 cup Cream cheese
1/2 Avocado
1 cup Greek low fat yogurt (or plain yogurt)
Fresh lemon juice from 3/4 lemon (add to taste)
Salt and pepper to taste

Optional:
Tabasco
Spring onions

• Take your cream cheese out a little earlier to soften.
• Mash your avocado in a bowl using a fork.
• Add the cream cheese and yogurt, mashing the ingredients until thick and smooth.
• Mix in the lemons juice and salt and pepper (and Tabasco or spring onions if wanted).

Serve with your choice of fresh sliced vegetables for a healthier snack/meal, such as zucchini, carrots, cucumber, broccoli, cauliflower, celery, or baby radishes.

The picture above shows the dips served with carrot slices, rosemary bread stick, lightly toasted pita bread (sliced and poped in the oven at 180 for approx 5 mins), and tequila lime olives, with lemon infused water. I had abit of the sun dried tomato dip left over, which I served aswell.

A new leaf - Sun dried tomato dip

During my disappearing act, I was trying to figure out what to do with my life now that I've graduated. So after returning to Perth from beautiful Mauritius, Eirik and I decided to scout the East of Australia to possibly spend the next two years working somewhere new within Australia. We had an amazing time in Sydney and Melbourne, great food experiences as well!!! Which I will share and recommend. Right now, the most amazing date pudding I could ever imagine is coming to mind and building a craving.... When in Melbourne, this is a must! I'll share soon.

Though I am still not sure what I'll be doing over the next few months of my life, the next step is moving to Norway, in two and a half weeks. So lots of packing ahead, and making sure I visit a few favourite places before leaving.

Today was a relaxing day with a delicious snack and a delicious meal. For dinner, fresh salmon with the skin on, a nice salad, lemon wedges to squeeze, and sour cream topped with a sprinkling of spring onion. A tip for cooking salmon with the skin on: make your pan very hot, pop your salmon in skin down for a few minutes to crisp the skin, and then turn the heat down to cook the salmon through.

After tasting this flavorful dip at a friends birthday I knew I had to try it for myself, so today I made a sun-dried tomato dip and had with a baguette fresh from the bakery. Mmmm does that dip have flavour! I found a good recipe, which I'll share below with my tweaks.

Ingredients

Sun-dried tomatoes in oil, drained and chopped (approx 15 pieces)
225g Cream cheese, at room temperature
1/2 cup Sour cream
1/2 cup Mayonnaise (I might replace this with sour cream next time as the mayonnaise flavour was quite obvious and I would have preferred stronger sun-dried tomato flavour)
10 dashes, Tabasco or similar
1 teaspoon Salt
3/4 teaspoon Freshly ground black pepper
3 Sliced spring onions

It takes about 10 minutes to prep, and yields 2 cups.

Puree the tomatoes, cream cheese, sour cream, mayonnaise, tabasco, salt and pepper in a food processor fitted with a metal blade. Add the spring onions pulse just into they fold into the mixture. Serve at room temperature.

It's great with fresh vegetables (especially carrots), savory biscuits, or fresh baguette.

Tip: It gets even better after its stayed in the fridge for a while, the flavours infuse well over time, so I would suggest making this a few hours before you intend to serve it.