🦐 Pipirrana - Spanish Summer Salad
Plus 6 Christmas Cookies & Treats + One Day Offer!
The countdown to Christmas has truly begun. This is around the time I usually bake batch after batch of Christmas cookies and make my popular Homemade Chewy Caramels to pack in my Christmas gifting bags for friends.
But this year, it has been insanely hot in Sydney for long stretches of the week. Consecutive days ranging from 36°C (96°F) - 42°C (107°F) have made it nearly impossible to turn on the oven in my kitchen. We do not have air conditioning, so have to plan cooking, washing, drying and opening and closing the windows a bit more mindfully to not only stay cool but sustainable.
But Sunday will see a reprieve as the temperature drops down to 26°C (79°F). I plan to get all my cookie-baking done on this day. I am a woman on a mission. We have also been eating no-cook meals to avoid sweltering in the kitchen. This means a lot of our meals are fantastic chilled salads, ceviches and salsas packed with an exciting combination of fresh ingredients that are not only delicious but scream - SUMMER!
I thought I would do a series of newsletters in the lead-up to Christmas to share everything we are cooking and eating right now that will also be perfect for planning your Christmas, Boxing Day and New Year’s eve menus.
So, on the FIRST day of my Christmas newsletters, I present to you one delightfully refreshing Pipirrana (Spanish Salad), six sweet treats to munch around the Christmas tree and a very special offer!
🎄 FIRST DAY of Christmas Offer / One Day Only!! 25% OFF All New Annual Subscriptions.
~ Sneh xx
One Brand New Recipe
Pipirrana - Spanish Seafood Summer Salad
Cooked octopus tentacles and prawns, chopped and added to a bowl with salad veggies, herbs and cumin and lemon-infused olive oil dressing! Perfect warm or chilled, this beautiful Spanish summer salad was cooked for us by a dear friend who had just returned from a trip to Spain. We loved it so much, I had to recreate it. Now, it has become one of our favourite things to eat when the mercury rises!
How gorgeous would this look at your Christmas table? Fancy, delicious and only 20 minutes to make (with the option of making ahead!).
6 Christmas Treats
1. Homemade Chewy Caramels
A 5-ingredient easy homemade toffee - a luscious, smooth caramel that melts in your mouth. A solid time and tested recipe that will not fail you (and if it does, I show you how to rescue it too! Super easy.) Perfect for gifting as this one makes a huge batch and lasts for ages.
2. My Gingerbread Buttons
Good old-fashioned gingerbread but shaped like buttons, so you can string them up on Christmas twine and decorate your tree or use as gift tags. These started as a tradition when my boys were little but we have so much fun making these that we still make them almost two decades on.
3. Pfeffernusse (German Spice Cookies)
What is Christmas without a good gingerbread spiced cookie? And what better spiced cookie than a German Pfeffernusse, rich with flavour and coated in a shroud of icing sugar? Yum!
4. Frangipane Jam Drops
A delightful cookie for your Christmas cookie box, this melt-in-your mouth jam drop has a rich almond base and is studded with red jam to make it extra festive!
5. Kourabiedes - Greek Crescent Cookies
Little crescent cookies, textural and sugar kissed and spiked with orange peel and brandy. Like all good Christmas treats should be! One of the first things I bake every year.
6. Vegan Coconut Chai Cookies
For my vegan and gluten-free friends, this one is so delicious, that everyone grabs more than one after tasting it! Nutty and so much flavour packed in a little coconutty cookie.
Before I go
The Guardian recently interviewed me for a lovely salad piece. I shared my best salad-making tips and techniques, favourite flavour profiles and favourite salad ingredients. I invited them in my kitchen where we chatted and made a delightfully fresh leafy summer salad packed with legumes and seeds (a riff of this Not Jennifer Aniston Salad). It was a good day! You can read the article here.
👋🏽 You can find me on Instagram and Facebook. Don’t forget to check out over 700 Recipes On Cook Republic. You can find a signed copy of My Cookbook here (Australia only!).