If you know me personally, or read my Instagram captions, then you just may well be aware that I’m slightly obsessed with hosting. I don’t really know where this originated from or when it even began, but I simply love hosting dinners, parties, girly nights in.. I’m slowly but surely turning into Monica from friends. Now that the Autumn/Winter season is upon us, I feel like there’s just a whole new window of hosting opportunities that are just waiting to unfold! This time of year seems to be filled with celebratory occasions and I couldn’t be more excited!

So, in honour of this, I thought I would start sharing some of my favourite party and dinner recipes, starting with these cheesy, fig and honey toasts! These are the ideal starter or party finger food and have an incredible balance of sweet, savoury, crunch and indulgently gooey melted cheese. If you’re a regular here on the blog, you’ll probably notice that I don’t typically cook with or eat a lot of dairy products in my day to day life. This is a personal choice and just something that makes me feel a little better- I’m not here saying what you should or shouldn’t be eating. However, I’m not against including a little bit of cheese into my diet here and there because it is something that I have always enjoyed. I’m not saying that this will be something that I’ll eat for ever, but on occasion I am still consuming some dairy products. However, I recently realised that I pretty much haven’t eaten any red meat for the majority of this year and it’s felt so natural and hasn’t been something that I’ve really struggled with at all! 

There are numerous different methods of cooking dishes like this, but I wanted to try and make the process as quick and simple as possible, so the entire recipe can be cooked in one griddle pan. I didn’t realise just how much I would love cooking using one of these and we’ve had one in the kitchen cupboard for over a year now and just never really got around to using it. They’re great for getting that grilled effect on veggies and work really well for this particular recipe. 

Another thing that this recipe has introduced me to is cooked figs. Don’t quote me on this, but I think that fig season might have started as there seems to be an influx of them in the supermarkets at the moment- which I’m rather happy about might I add! A few years ago, I was literally SO obsessed with figs and would have at least one every single day. However, for some reason, I’d still never tried hot figs before.. and I can now safely say that I consider my self to have missed out! Cooking these in the griddle pan creates and amazingly soft & sweet caramelised texture, that contrasts against the savoury flavours from the bread and cheese. I would really recommend using a good freshly baked sourdough or rye bread loaf for this. You can’t really beat a good loaf of fresh bread now can ya.