Canapes - 21st of August

Any excuse to make canapes and this time we took the opportunity to organise a little party to coincide with our dear friends Sue, Germain and little Ellie's visit to London from Tokyo. Always fun to gather friends together and i decided to have a few canapes.. nice and simple on paper but it was hard work too! 
So, here is what i did: 
- Sausage rolls
- Mini pizzas with 3 toppings: Feta/pesto/pine nute, goats cheese/onion marmalade/thyme, tomato/olive/pepperoni/mozzarella
- Pea/mint/truffle soup shots
- mini skewers with parma ham/mozzarella/figs
- mini skewers with ribbons of smoked salmon/cucumber
- Bruschetta with tomato/basil/onion salsa, roast beef/horseradish/creme fraice/parsley
- Mini chocolate pots with crushed amaretti biscuits
- Eton mess
- mini tarts with custard/strawberries
- chocolate dipped strawberries (dark/white chocolate, chopped pistachios and crussed amaretti biscuits

A lot of the food could be prepared in advance and then cooked/assembled during the evening. They all went really quickly and i guess they were either very nice or people were very hungry!! I captured most of them on camera but not all.. see photos below.

The pea soup was made in advance and then i just re-heated and poured into little disposable shot glasses!
For the salmon/cucumber canapees i used a potato peeler to make ribbons of a cucumber.. then just threaded it together with the salmon on sticks.. squeeze of lime and some black pepper..

Here are the mini pizzas waiting to go in the oven. I then just added a little drizzle of fresh pesto to the Pizzas with the Feta cheese when they came out of the oven, scattered some basil over and voila! For the goats cheese pizzas i added a little dollop of onion marmelade when they were ready to eat. I bought basic pizza mix to make life easier and cut them out using a cookie cutter.. Very easy and i personally think they look fab!

Sausage rolls - shop bought puff pastry and some good quality sausages. i removed the sausage skin and place on top of the puff pastry added some chopped herbs and rolled together. Rolled them into foil and kept them in the fridge until needed. Then just cut them into small bite size pieces and put them in the oven for 10 min.

Strawberries.. simply dipped in dark or white chocolate and then either left plain or dipped in chopped pistachios or crushed amaretti biscuits...i totally forgot about them during the evening and they finally made it out when there were a handful of guests left.. oh well, better late than never i guess..

Chocolate pots - easy to do in advance. Made out of Cream, dark chocolate, sugar and egg yolks.Poured into shot glasses and chilled. Then topped with crushed amaretti biscuits.

I have to admit that the little mini tart cases were shop bought from M & S.. i customised them and filled them with dark or white melted chocolate then topped them with vanilla custard and a quarter of a strawberry.