Some recipes from Chocfish to go with the pics.
Greek tomatoes:
500g Cherry tomatoes
180g soft goatscheese or you can use any soft cheese to your liking, but it should not be runny, I have used Boursin cheese before and it was really nice too
100ml cream
freshly ground black pepper
1 tbsp thyme
3 or more or less (its up to you) garlic cloves
60g olives, black
olive oil
You can prepare this dish well in advance and in bigger quanitites because the longer is has time to marinate the better it will taste
Cut the lids off the tomatoes, hollow out - use a small spoon, it makes it easier (I use the lids and flesh for tomato sauce or other salads),
Mix all the rest of the ingredients together, except for the olives, and fill the tomatoes with the cheese mixture, either spoon it in or use a piping bag, sprinkle some of the thyme leaves over, mix in the olives, drizzel with a bit more olive oil and salt and pepper and just leave to stand.
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Toadstools
hardboiled eggs
tomatoes, smallish
mayonnaise or cream cheese
cut a tiny bit off the bottom of the boiled egg so that it stands level
half your tomato, hollow it out, and sit it on top of the egg (like a hat)
put tiny dots of mayonnaise or cream cheese on the tomato (I got a plastic syringe from the chemist, without a needle, took out the plunger, filled the syringe with mayo and this really helped with piping the dots)
I also make little faces out of hardboiled eggs, with a salami hat, olive slices as eyes or just stick 2 cloves as eyes, a sliver of red pepper as mouth, then you can put a smudge of ketchup to give your little guy rosy cheeks, you can dip your finger in freshly ground pepper and dab it on to give him designer stubble, etc, or instead of the salami hat give him hair made of chives or stick in some nibble sticks to make him look as if his hair stands on end
All these things make your platters look as if you have spent loads of time preparing them, but you know otherwise
If you need a picture of one of those faces, I will try and make a couple of funny men and make a photo.
The hedgehogs
These are just hedgehog shaped meatloaves, use any recipe you have there, then use a black currant as nose and eyes or a bit of prune or even a black olive as nose and peppercorns as eyes, just see what works best on the hedgehog that you created, maybe if your hedgehog has turned out a bit too brown/dark you need red noses and red eyes (tomatoes/cranberries) make the spikes either with blanched almonds cut lengthways into little spikes or try with other nuts or you can do this with radish, esp the white root radish.
All the best to all of you, I hope you have lots of fun
Love from Karen x
