BLT Bites

Every time my husband goes to a poker party at one of our friends house, I send with him an appetizer.  Usually I send Ranch Mushrooms (I swear I'll get around to taking pictures of the finished product so I can share the recipe some day!)  I knew when we were invited to their house for a Fourth of July party, that I needed to bring *the* mushrooms-- but I wanted to also bring along something else and these little gems did not fail me.  They came in a close second to the mushrooms; but I think the guys enjoyed having something else tossed into the mix!  I have a feeling I will be forever making mushrooms AND tomatoes on Poker Night!

I found this super easy recipe on the Taste of Home website.  I adjusted it a bit; less onion ( I used just two green onions) and I skipped the parsley all together.  Although it calls for cherry tomatoes, I could only find grape tomatoes on the particular day I was at the grocery store.  This created a bit of a challenge, as the grape tomatoes are much more slim and dainty for hollowing.  They also required an extra step of slicing a smidgen off the bottom so they would stand nicely!  Next time-- they had better have cherry tomatoes!

Ingredients


16 to 20 cherry tomatoes
1 pound sliced bacon, cooked and crumbled
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/3 cup chopped green onions
3 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons snipped fresh parsley

Directions

Cut a thin slice off of each tomato top. Scoop out and discard pulp. (Since I used grape tomatoes, I found this easiest by using a paring knife along with a tiny little seafood fork.)  Invert the tomatoes on a paper towel to drain.
In a small bowl, combine all remaining ingredients. Spoon into tomatoes. Refrigerate for several hours. Yield: 16-20 appetizer servings.
 

Beer Bread

Who needs to attend a Tastefully Simple home party and spend $6 on a box mix of beer bread when you can make it yourself at home-- with staple ingredients? It's a favorite around here and can be made in the same amount of time that the processed box mix crap can be made.

Ingredients:
3 cups of all purpose flour
1/3 cup of sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
12 oz of beer (or pop like 7-Up, Sprite, Ginger Ale)
2 tbsp butter, melted

Directions:
Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl. Gently pour in the beer and mix until just blended. Batter will be thick.

Pour into a greased loaf pan and pour melted butter over the top of bread batter. Bake at 375° for 45 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

Remove from pan and let cool on a baking rack.
Cut in cubes and serve with your favorite dip or just eat it by the slice!

Pepperoni Appetizers

My sister threw together a last minute Labor Day BBQ at her house so I decided to try to make something quick and easy to bring along as an appetizer. I thought I was brilliant in coming up with the idea to skew Mozzarella cheese, pepperoni and an olive on a toothpick but when I presented the tray of these cute little kid-friendly apps, my sister proclaimed, "Oh I love those! I've made them before!"

Lame.

She even went so far as to take it one step further and drizzled Italian dressing over her skewed goods. I'll have to try that next time.... but for now, here is a great, non-original appetizer idea!

I thought they may be yummy with some marinara sauce as a dipper, too!

Directions:

As easy as it sounds--
- cube some Mozzarella cheese and slide onto a toothpick.
- Roll a slice of pepperoni and skew that on top of the cheese.
- Top with an olive, black or green.
- Apparently drizzling with Italian dressing is yummy, too.

Luckily, even without the Italian dressing, these were gobbled up within about 15 minutes by all of the little kidlets that were running around! Quite a hit with the under 13 crowd!

Edible Fruit Centerpiece

My friend, Janean, recently made an edible centerpiece like this one, so I decided to make one for Mother's Day. It's very similar to the Fruit Kabobs, but these have a cute flower made by using a cookie cutter and a melon baller.

I usually stuff my kabob sticks into a halved head of cabbage that is tucked inside of a serving bowl or container of some type, but this time I thought I would try using a halved melon (since I already had the melon for the kabobs). I don't recommend trying that! It was stinky! Raw cabbage doesn't have an odor after it's been halved, like the melon does. I ended up taking the melon dome out and using some lemons I had on hand as my kabob holder. Next time, I'll stick with the cabbage!

When making the flowers, all you have to do is thinly slice the pineapple (you don't even have to cut the outer skin away) and use a cookie cutter to slice your flower shape. Use a melon baller to make the inside of the flower and skew them both on the same skewer.

The other fruits were just wedged and skewed. One thing I did do was to skew grapes underneath all of the fruits. They seem to grab the wooden skewer and hold the heavier fruits up. They also hide the look of a bunch of sticks coming out of the centerpiece.

Mummy Dogs

I saw this cute idea on the cover of a recipe magazine while standing in a checkout lane at the store the other day. I didn't buy the book, but figured it wouldn't be too hard to create these without a recipe. Another cute Halloween food idea to feed your little ghosts and goblins before sending them out the door for trick-or-treating.



Ingredients:



Hot dogs
Crescent roll dough
Mustard (or ketchup)

What you do:

1. Unroll the crescent dough and don't break it apart. Leave it as one large rectangle and press the diagonal seams together a bit.

2. Use a pizza cutter or a knife to cut strips in the rectangle of crescent dough.

(I ended up cutting all of it, not just half as the picture shows)


3. Roll the strips (either a full length strip or a half strip (since it's perforated already) )like you would to make a snake out of playdough. Stretch the dough to be about 2 times it's length.

4. Wrap the rolled strip around a hotdog in a bandage fashion. I used two or three "half" strips for each mummy.



5. Place your mummies on a baking sheet and bake at 375°F for about 13 minutes (give or take) or until golden brown.



6. Use mustard or ketchup to dot some eyes on your mummies before serving.

Cowboy Caviar

My good friend Angela made this and shared it (and the recipe) with me last year. I thought I would be polite and try it, even though I'm a pretty picky eater. Had I been at a party and saw this on the table, I more than likely would have turned my nose up to it and walked on by. But being the good friend that I am, I took one for the team and gave it a try. Wow! I couldn't stop eating it!

I've made it a few times and it's been a hit every single time. It's so pretty with all of the texture and color popping all over the place! Serve them with those little Tostido Scoops that are meant for dipping and you've got yourself a perfect combonation.



1 red pepper, diced
1 green pepper, diced
1 orange pepper, diced
1 yellow pepper, diced
4 stalks of celery, diced
1 med. red onion, diced

I highly suggest The Pampered Chef chopper!


Drain:
1 can shoe peg corn
1 can black eyed peas
1 can pinto beans rinsed

MARINADE:
1/2 c cider vinegar
1 c canola oil
1/2 cup sugar

Boil vinegar and oil, then remove from heat. Add sugar, stir well and cool.

Pour marinade over diced vegetables. Marinate for at least 24 hours. Drain to serve, saving marinade to hold leftovers. Keeps for 2 weeks.



Serve with corn chips/Tostido's. The little scoop ones work beautifully for this!

Fruit Kabobs

This is actually the arrangement I made last year for Memorial Day. I got the idea from one of my aunt's that had made a similar fruit kabob arrangement. I loved it so much, I decided to make one and use it as our edible centerpiece!

Ingredients:

Various fresh fruits (I used the following so it would be a rainbow order)
Watermelon
Cantaloupe
Pineapple
Green grapes
Red grapes
Wooden skewers
Half a head of cabbage (or iceberg lettuce would probably work, too)

Method:

Cut up fruits into about 1 1/2 inch pieces. Slide onto skewers in the order that suits you, leaving a couple of inches free on the bottom end of the skewer (the pointy end) and about an inch at the top (this allows guests a place to grasp when they choose their kabob).

I found that it was best to end with grapes.... as they are strong enough and stay tight enough to the skewer that they will hold everything else up on the stick. If you end with something like watermelon, you may have a problem with the weight of the other fruits above it causing it to slide down the skewer.

Place half a head of cabbage, cut side down, in the bottom of a decorative basket

When your skewers are complete, poke each one randomly into the cabbage. The cabbage will hold the skewers in place.

**Some fruits may stain your basket if they come into contact with it**