FFwD - Buckwheat Blinis with Smoked Salmon and Creme Fraiche

I love a bit of smoked salmon every now and again, and this week, Dorie aided and abetted my hankering with our French Fridays with Dorie recipe - Buckwheat Blinis with Smoked Salmon and Creme Fraiche.

Dorie's blinis, which are like little pancakes, are made with buckwheat, because Dorie says it gives them a nutty flavour.  However, buckwheat is rather hard to find here - it is a specialty shop item which costs a pretty penny.  Now that I am possessed of buckwheat flour, I will have to find other ways to use it, as it is right up there in price with chestnut flour.

Interestingly, Dorie's blinis are quite large - when you go to a drinks function here, the blinis served are teeny tiny teaspoon sized objects, whereas Dorie's are around the same size as your average pikelet.

The blinis are relatively easy to make, and I thought they tasted good without any topping at all.

However, the recipe was for blinis with  smoked salmon and creme fraiche, so I continued on: 
 

I rarely buy creme fraiche, it being a relatively exotic item that I first learned about through Jamie Oliver in his jubbly wubbly days (way back in 2001, I was besotted with his lifestyle as portrayed through his TV shows, and was so excited when I got a job in London the next year).


Although I adore smoked salmon, I knew I couldn't eat all of the blinis alone, and I wasn't going to splurge on lots of smoked salmon for my work colleagues, so I made up the remainder of the blinis with halved cherry tomatoes and creme fraiche:

These were pretty good too, although not as decadent as the smoked salmon version.

I enjoyed this week's FFwD - I have never made blinis before, and they are really quite delicious.

To check out what everyone else thought of the buckwheat blinis, visit the LYL section of the FFwD website.

Chicken Cauliflower Curry with Seven Vegetable Cous Cous

It's probably time to mix things up a bit and allow your teeth to recover from all of my sweets.  Today, I am going to share two delicious dishes that I made on the weekend - Chicken Cauliflower Curry and Seven Vegetable Cous Cous.

The recipe for the Chicken Cauliflower Curry can be found here.  My inspiration for making it is - what can I cook using ingredients that I already have in the house?  A quick Google search led me to this delicious curry, which has zing without being too hot, and is relatively healthy too - no cream, coconut milk or buckets of oil.  I made the recipe as is and was worried there wouldn't be enough sauce - never fear, once you have simmered the curry for the prescribed time, there was enough sauce to cover it (though it wasn't "saucy" as such).


I teamed this delicious curry with a colourful Seven Vegetable Cous Cous:

You can find the recipe here.  I skipped the harissa (which some people said overpowered the dish), and replaced the lima beans with tinned cannelini beans.  I also skipped the squash (as I didn't have any), so technically, I made a six vegetable cous cous.  Seven is apparently a magic number in Morocco, hence the origins of the seven vegetables, but you can add and subtract whatever you want from this dish.  You could even add some cooked chicken for an all-in-one meal. 

While the cous cous would make a fabulous main in its own right, I served it as a side dish to the curry: 

Doesn't it make you happy looking at all of those colours on the plate together?

Both dishes contain  raisins, which some people may baulk at, but I love a fruity main course.  You could leave the raisins out without ill effect, or substitute cranberries.

Enjoy!