parmesan lollipops and our food-on-sticks lunch: the most fun you’ll ever have with sticks!

When someone suggested we have a “sticks” themed pot luck lunch, it piqued my curiosity. Fun with sticks? Sticks? Really? Really. Not that I am opposed to sticks. Growing up in Australia, our BBQ was fired up on an almost weekly basis so meat on sticks featured heavily in my weekly food diary. Not that I actually kept a food diary. But we did have wings on sticks! Anyway, I wasn’t opposed to food on sticks, but I was desperately curious to find out how we’d make it fun.

But really, given the people who were to be my pot luck partners in crime, having an “un-fun” lunch was never on the cards.

Remember this pot luck? And this one? Personally I think we’ve not only upped the ante this time but more like we trundled the thing into the ground but yes, these guys. As if any pot luck with these guys could ever be un-fun.

For my part in this crime of fun-ness, I made some banana cake pops which were fashioned out of the innards of banana cake muffins. I totally 150% cheated because if you want to make “real cake pops” you should blend the cake with cream cheese and make little balls out of that. Just cutting ball shapes out of cake? Totally cheating.

Oh well

I also wanted to make something savoury and my genius friend Christine suggested a stupendously easy recipe adapted from BBC’s Lorraine Pascale – parmesan lollipops! These are VERY easy to make, and although the recipe below has about a billion steps, it’s really two steps: make circles with parmesan cheese and bake. Presto.

They are perfect for little kids and big kids, and if you don’t want to make lollipops (although, why not? It’s just that much more fun!) you can skip the sticks and make parmesan chips!

Anyway, enough about me. We had some absolutely divine creations in our spread of stickiness. We did question though, at what point does it stop being “food on sticks” and become simply “sticks in food”?

spicy prawn balls

sweet chilli chicken skewers

grilled aubergine

lamb skewers

shaking beef with mushrooms & radish

So those were the mains. Su-yin’s prawn balls (a Bill Grainger recipe) stole the show for me, accompanied by a chilli dipping sauce that cleared my sinuses and then some.

rum cocktail ice sticks

condensed milk ice cream

Home made condensed milk ice cream, courtesy of the wonderful Mowie (I know, I’m also surprised it wasn’t pink). So this came on a cone, not a stick but it’s CONDENSED MILK, people, who the f*** cares what it comes on?

pomegranate Turkish delight

toffee apples

banana cake pops (recipe here)

strawberries & chocolate

violet macarons

These were Bruce’s babies. I think Bruce and I started making macarons around the same time. Only mine still suck and look at his! They are so well behaved they even perch on sticks. Not jealous. Much.

cornflake cake pops

coconut agar-agar with sago & gula melaka

Another Su-yin creation. She’s the good Malaysian daughter my parents never had.

guava bellini

And to keep us lubricated, we had drinks on sticks… well, as close as they come. Guava bellinis in tall champagne glasses.

Needless to say, we ate and ate and ate and thank GOD I wore a big loose top to hide my stomach which post-surgery, I can no longer hold in. I might as well die. [Not really]. We sugar-highed and we sugar-lowed and then we all went to Waitrose to buy groceries. See how these parties can bond people? I totally suggest you go hold a pot luck lunch too, and make it a sticks theme

Parmesan lollipops
120 grams finely grated parmesan cheese 2 tablespoons sesame seeds 2 tablespoons mixed herbs cracked pepper20 skewers (or I used 10 full length skewers cut in half)
Soak skewers in a bowl of water overnight or for 3 hours to prevent burning in the oven. Preheat oven to 220°C/430°F. Mix the cheese, sesame seeds, mixed herbs and cracked pepper in a bowl. Cover a tray with baking paper and grease well with oil or butter. Using about one tablespoon of cheese at a time, create circles (about 6cm diameter) on the baking paper. Gently press down – the circles of cheese should be about 2mm thick – and tidy into a nice neat circle. Lay a skewer on the cheese, the tip of the skewer at the centre of the circle. Press down a little, then sprinkle a little bit more cheese to cover the skewer. Bake in the oven for 5 minutes. The cheese should be bubbling and slightly brown. Remove from oven and move sheet of baking paper onto a wire tray to cool. Cooling only takes 1-2 minutes and you can use a thin knife to remove carefully from the paper. I made about 7 lollipops in one go, so repeat the process.
Makes 20 lollipops.