Two low carb Christmas canapes

Well Christmas is now almost over (sob) and I am busy thinking of ideas for tomorrow evening. I shared some ideas for low carb canapes for parties after my little New Year party last year but thought now might be a good time to revisit them. I think at first glance when you think about the festive season and parties your instinct is to think that it's not possible to stay on the wagon and socialise etc at the same time. Now don't get me wrong, there was lots of off plan eating for me this Christmas but I also tried to stay on plan as much as I could, mainly because it's also a time for lots of photo taking and seeing people and I didn't want to balloon just because I'd let everything slip.

When I host parties, which I typically do a few times over the festive period I actually find it quite easy to stay on plan; I make lots of little canapes and nibbly bits and these are actually quite easy to do on a low carb plan. I'm sharing here two which pretty much only really require cucumber and cream cheese and which are amongst my go to ideas when entertaining.

The first one just needs cucumber, cream cheese and you can use pomegranate seeds, though I have't this time. The recipe is a Lorraine Pascale one and you can find it here. Last year I did use the pomegrante seeds and you can see how they looked here. They keep for ages in the fridge so you can make them in advance and whip out once the guests arrive! In the original recipe they peel the cucumber but I don't bother, as I think they look just as nice with skin and it saves time and it less wasteful, the option is there though...

Looking at them now I can see I perhaps did rush them and could have cut them a little straighter, not sure you'd really notice though if they were's being photographed and enlarged on a screen! #lifestooshort

I decorated them with a few snips of chives, edible flowers (more of which below) and some micro leaves. You cam also buy micro cucumbers in a quite a lot of shops now so you could make even smaller versions, though might be a bit fiddly- I'll get back to you on that one!

The second requires only cucumber, cream cheese and a garnish- not essential of course but worth it in my book. Essentially it's not even a recipe, just peel a cucumber lengthways, then place a dollop of cream cheese on one end then roll up and scatter with micro leaves and edible flowers if you have them! FYI I did a post on growing my own microgreens here and plan to do lots more of this in the new year.

Now of course for any festive/ entertaining occasion, edible flowers seem to make everything look better and more polished. Don't be thinking you can only get them in the warmer months, I was sent these beauties from Nurtured in Norfolk and have used them to garnish food and cocktails as well as in ice cubes and they always attract lots of attention and compliments. They last far longer than you'd expect too, especially the more hardy ones like Amaranth which seemed to keep forever!