The holidays are getting closer, so we prepared a bunch of new recipes and brought the most delicious of our recipes with ajvar together into one place. Everything from great delicacies to incredibly delicious ideas will give you a holiday that appeals to all senses, and with it gift recipes from some of our favourite cooking blogs together with surprises coming from our kitchen!

Festive days are coming! Days when we get together with our family and friends to celebrate love and joy that brings us all together. And is there a better and nicer way to do this than over a delicious snack with ajvar and favourite food that spreads warmth and never fails to bring smiles of contentment. We enjoyed making and tasting all these festive delicacies for you and we truly hope that you’ll find a new favourite recipe among our suggestions or inspiration to enrich your festive menu this year.

COLD APPETISERS

Cheese and ajvar balls
Our favourite appetisers to start a meal with are these mouth-watering cheese and ajvar balls, and it takes only a bit of decoration to make them stand out on your table just like the most beautiful Christmas balls on the tree. The recipe comes with our suggestions on how to decorate them, and all that is left for you to do is to let your imagination run wild and play! They’re wonderfully creamy and aromatic, and they have stuffed olives hidden within – a surprise in store for all foodies. If we add that they are incredibly easy and quick to make, we’re sure it’ll be love at first bite.

Shortcrust savoury cookies with ajvar
For all the fans of pastry, savoury cookies with ajvar filled with walnuts and scented with rosemary are the number one classic to lighten the atmosphere and increase the appetite for next courses.

Savoury vanilla cookies with ajvar
There’s one more aromatic, fragrant version of these cookies. We heartily recommend you try savoury vanilla cookies with ajvar and delicious parmesan cheese and lavish truffles, which come from the following blog as a gift recipe coolinarija.com

HOT APPETISERS
Strudel with ajvar
Is there anything better than rich rolls with ajvar tucked in fine sourdough of an authentic home-made strudel? We can’t think of a better way to start a festive meal! This elegant, classic beauty comes as a gift recipe from the following blog jekinkapric.blogspot.com

Polenta canapés with spices, rolled medallions and ajvar or ljutenica
Canapés are ones of those simple and quick ideas that become a real tasty tidbit with the help of just a bit imagination. We suggest you try these warm, aromatised polenta canapés with spices, rolled medallions, ajvar or ljutenica, as you prefer. If you’re looking for a lenten option, we recommend our polenta canapés with spices, chickpeas, and ajvar

Cups with ricotta and wild-fruit spread with honey
It’s not exactly ajvar but it’s as delicious. Our favourite for this season are these fine, crunchy cups with refreshing juicy filling made of gentle ricotta, almonds, and wonderful wild fruit with natural honey. A real holiday snack for all food fans!

MAIN DISHES

Shepherd’s pie with mushrooms, sweet potato, and ajvar (link)
This lenten and delicious pie is a great choice for a warm main dish, especially after an ample entrée. This recipe works every time and we’re always happy to try it out over and over again. It has a rich filling with mushrooms, lentils, ajvar, and vegetables with incredibly soft mashed sweet potatoes hidden within and we’re sure you’ll love it.

This time, for a special occasion, we prepared it in small separate refractory moulds, while you can make it in a single large dish.

Rolled pork with piquant ajvar filling
Here’s a real gourmet delicacy for all the meat fans to enjoy, coming in the form of rolled mushroom with fragrant spices, walnuts, and ajvar, which makes the meat extra soft and gives it incredibly rich flavour.

Sweet potato moussaka with spinach and ajvar
This moussaka, rich in colour and taste, has not one, but two wonderfully creamy fillings. One is made of spinach, while the other one is made of ajvar. These tasty layers are a perfect match with sweet potatoes and they give this dish an attractive appearance. Cut it into cubes and be prepared to be astonished by the speed at which they disappear from the table! Gift recipe from the spicesunshine.com blog.

BONUS RECIPES: FESTIVE DELICACIES

We all know that festive menus are incomplete without sweets, and we also know that the nicest and favourite sweets are those which fill us with joy and take us back to our childhood with every bite. This is why we chose the real classic for our festive menu – a lavish walnut cake coming straight from granny’s cookery book. Of course, we enriched granny’s recipe by adding fruit spreads with honey and we made it in two ways, and we’ll let you decide which one is better.

Festive walnut and blackcurrant cake

As all traditional cakes this one too requires a bit of time and patience for preparation, but, trust us, each bite will later make it worth it. Wonderful citrus aroma of orange peel and freshness of sweet blackcurrant are an ideal match adding a final touch to the flavour of this walnut-rich cake.

Ingredients:
450g butter
450g walnuts
600g sugar
150g flour
4 eggs
240ml milk
2 small jars of blackcurrant spread with honey
2 grated orange peels

Preparation:
Layer 1:
Beat 150g butter, 150g sugar, and 150g flour together thoroughly. Add 150g walnuts and 4 beaten egg whites. Spread the mixture in a baking tray coated with oil until it’s around 2 cm thick and bake at a lower temperature, around 160-170C for about 20 minutes.
Layer 2:
Beat 4 yolks and 150g sugar together, then coat the baked layer and bake it for a few minutes until the sugar melts.
Filling 1:
Heat 120ml milk and 150g sugar until they boil and use this to steam 150g butter and 150g ground walnuts and beat everything thoroughly. Coat the crust with a third of the filling in a thin layer, keep the remaining filling and put everything in the fridge and let it cool down.
Layer 2:
Heat 120ml milk and 150g sugar until they boil and use this to steam 150g butter and 150g ground walnuts and beat everything thoroughly. Add 2 small jars of blackcurrant spread with honey and two grated orange peels to the filling and mix everything together. Coat the cake with this filling and spread the rest of the first walnut filling over it.
Sprinkle the cake with ground walnuts and let it cool down and thicken well before you serve it.

Festive walnut, apricot and spice cake

This version of walnut cakes is full of wonderful aromatic spices, which, in combination with apricots, will spread that well-known warm smell of holiday around the house. Nutmeg, cinnamon, aniseed, wonderful juicy dried apricots, and exotic goji berries together with sweet apricot spread with honey make this cake absolutely irresistible.

Ingredients:
450g butter
450g walnuts
600g sugar
150g flour
4 eggs
240ml milk
2 small jars of apricot spread with honey
150g dried apricots
50g goji berries
a pinch of grated nutmeg
2 teaspoons of cinnamon
a pinch of ground aniseed

Preparation:
Layer 1:
Beat 150g butter, 150g sugar, and 150g flour together thoroughly. Add 150g walnuts and 4 beaten egg whites. Spread the mixture in a baking tray coated with oil until it’s around 2 cm thick and bake at a lower temperature, around 160-170C for about 20 minutes.
Layer 2:
Beat 4 yolks and 150g sugar together, then coat the baked layer and bake it for a few minutes until sugar melts.
Filling 1:
Heat 120ml milk and 150g sugar until they boil and use this to steam 150g butter and 150g ground walnuts and beat everything thoroughly. Coat the crust with a third of the filling in a thin layer, keep the remaining filling and put everything in the fridge and let it cool down.
Layer 2:
Heat 120ml milk and 150g sugar until they boil and use this to steam 150g butter and 150g ground walnuts and beat everything thoroughly. Add 2 small jars of apricot spread with honey, chopped dried apricots, goji berries, and spices. Coat the cake with this filling and spread the rest of the first walnut filling over it.
Sprinkle the cake with ground walnuts and let it cool down and thicken well before you serve it.

We reached the very end of our holiday edition. We hope you’ll decide to try some of these tasty recipes but mostly we hope that you’ll enjoy all wonderful flavours, smells, colours, and aromas of a good home-made bite in the company of your nearest and dearest.

We wish you a lot of joy and happiness! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!