Category: Appetizers

Dying Easter Eggs Blue, Naturally

Leave a comment

For a really fun alternative to commercially prepared egg dyes, try dying eggs using natural ingredients. One of my favorite, surprising ways to dye eggs is by using Red Cabbage. This is a great project to do with kids!

Ingredients

1 red cabbage, cut into thin slices
1 Tbsp vinegar
18 eggs (or as many as you want)

Place cabbage into a large pot and add water about 2/3 of the way to the top. Add vinegar and eggs, and bring to the boil. Simmer for 12-15 minutes and remove from heat. Let cool and remove eggs and rinse off any bits of cabbage stuck to them. (They won’t be dyed yet, but it’s easier to cook the eggs that way. Removing stray cabbage bits is important – I still had a good bit of cabbage on my eggs and I got a few blotchy spots.)

Place eggs into a large pitcher. Once cabbage water has cooled a bit, pour it through a fine mesh strainer over the eggs. Cover and store in the refrigerator for several hours for a light blue color. Keep them in overnight if you want darker. I kept mine in the cabbage water for about 18 hours total.

Carefully pour out the cabbage water and pat the eggs dry.

For more colors, try onion skins for pretty yellow and beets for soft pink, prepared the same way. You’ll never go back to commercial dyes!

Incredible Dill & Onion Dip

Leave a comment

Dill Seeds are well known, but Dill Weed deserves more credit! It’s the star of the show in this adaptation of the Pioneer Woman’s Dill Dip. I served it with raw veggies and as a sauce on Baked Salmon, at my brother Ron’s suggestion. So delicious!

How I fell in love with Dill Weed: My neighbor Gene has tons of dill growing in his garden and let me harvest quite a lot last fall. Drying dill weed is easy and it adds great flavor to many dishes. I often make Salmon with dried dill, salt, pepper and garlic powder.

Ree adds 2 Tbsp of pickle juice, but I didn’t have any so I just added a little vinegar. She also only uses mayo and sour cream, but since I had a lot of plain yogurt, I drained it and used about a cup.

Ingredients

1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 cup sour cream
1 cup plain whole milk yogurt, drained (see note 1 below)
2 tsp vinegar
2 Tbsp dried dill (see note 2 below)
1 Tbsp dried parsley
1 Tbsp dried minced onions
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp kosher salt

Mix all ingredients in a medium bowl. Cover with plastic and store in the fridge overnight. Taste before serving and add salt if needed. The minced onions rehydrate and blend with the dill to make a truly delicious dip.

Note 1:

To make your own “greek” style yogurt at home you just need an empty yogurt container and a paper coffee filter. Cut a few notches in the bottom of the container, and tuck a coffee filter down around the bottom. Add the yogurt and let it drain into a deep cup in the fridge for several hours or overnight. If you let it drain until it is quite thick, you can actually season it and use it as a very soft cheese.

Here’s my notched yogurt container:

Note 2:

Drying Dill is also super easy, you can tie it as shown in the beautiful photo above by Elena Kloppenburg on Unsplash. Or you can just use a clothespin to hold it. Then just pop it in a folded down brown paper lunch bag and wait a few days. Keeping the stems intact, crush the leaves, leaving as much stem as possible. Store in a mason jar with a tight seal.

Spring Roll Peanut Sauce

Leave a comment

I am practicing making Vietnamese and Thai Spring Rolls and once I’ve got it truly mastered, I’ll add the recipe. But I have to share this Peanut Dipping Sauce now, because it is just so good.

We’ve been using it as a dipping sauce for baby cucumbers and carrot sticks and it is absolutely irresistible.

Ingredients:

2 large cloves of garlic, peeled
2 1/2 Tbsp rice vinegar (apple cider vinegar is fine, too)
2 Tbsp Soy Sauce
4 pieces of palm sugar (about 3 Tbsp) or 2 1/2 Tbsp brown sugar
1 Tbsp Toasted Sesame Oil
1/3 cup peanut butter (creamy or crunchy – both are fine)
Warm water as needed

In a large mortar and pestle, start by smashing the garlic cloves. Add vinegar, soy suce and palm sugar, and stir, crushing the palm sugar until it’s mostly broken down. Or just add the brown sugar.

Add sesame oil and peanut butter and mix in the mortar bowl, until smooth and creamy. Add warm water a teaspoon at a time until the consistency is a thick but smooth sauce. Check flavorings and add a little soy sauce or sesame oil if it’s tasting too sweet.

Can keep refrigerated for a week. You may need to add a little more warm water to loosen it up after it’s been in the fridge overnight.

If you don’t have a large mortar and pestle, you can always crush the garlic and just mix everything in a small bowl.

Palm sugar adds a wonderful flavor, but if you can’t get it, just use a little less brown sugar. (Brown sugar is sweeter than palm sugar.)

Easy Cheesy Toast

Leave a comment

The weather is suddenly feeling cooler here and I was hungry for something warm and cheesy. My brother Tom and I used to make cheese toast when we were kids and I always loved it. Since I’d just baked a fresh loaf of bread, I thought Cheese Toast would be fun and fast. I used The Pioneer Woman’s Recipe, with slight variations. Either way – it’s warm, cheesy, crunchy and delicious and when Ali stopped by, he loved it, too!

Ingredients

2 cups grated Sharp Cheddar
2 cups grated Monterey Jack (or quesadilla cheese)
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup grated Parmesan
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/4 tsp seasoned salt (Lawry’s)

Slices of a hearty loaf (I used my easy French Bread.) Cut the slices in half if they are large.

Directions

In a medium bowl, combine the Cheddar, Monterey Jack, mayonnaise, Parmesan, pepper and seasoned salt.

Mound the cheese mixture on the slices of bread. Place on a baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Switch to the broiler and broil for another few minutes, until the cheese is utterly bubbly and starting to get brown in places.

These cheese toasts freeze well. To reheat, just bake them for 5 minutes, then broil another minute of so.

Note: Ree adds 1 tsp of salt and 4 Tbsp of melted butter, but honestly I don’t think you need either. I might also try adding a few drops of hot sauce or Worcestershire Sauce.

This would also be a humdinger served with Tomato Soup!

Caitlin’s Charcuterie Tray/Board

Leave a comment

Caitlin's-Charcuterie-TrayWe were going to a friend’s holiday get-together and I wanted to bring something a little different to share. Caitie suggested a charcuterie board and we picked up crackers, meats and cheeses to make it.

We always have a variety of nuts and dried fruits in the house and I had some amazing spiced cherry preserves, so we got started. (Basically I hunted up whatever Caitlin could think of and she arranged everything!)

Here’s what I learned:

1. It’s always nice to have at least two versions of everything.

    • Cheese – we had a nice Brie and cubes of a good cheddar.
    • Meat – we used Prosciutto, Capocollo and Calabrese Salami from a pre-packed tray. You  could also use any spicier turkey salami or turkey ham. Just make sure they are thinly sliced and bite-sized.
    • Nuts – we had cashews and almonds
    • Dried fruit – we used Craisins and candied ginger
    • Something sweet – we had Costco’s chocolate covered raisins

2. A board is nice but it’s more practical to use a tray with an edge to keep things from rolling around. (We actually used a Costco pie tray.)

3. Meats work best rolled into a tube, or a cone. They’re easier to stack and to pick up.

4. Hard cheeses should be cut into little squares. Soft cheese can be served in a chunk.

5. When you place items on the tray, try to keep the items in wedges going around. We started with a nice Brie and a pot of spiced cherries in the middle, and built around that.

6. Plan to vary the ingredients by color. It looks much prettier if you have a light colored item and then a dark item, etc.

7. Use a tiny bowl or cup for any type of relish.  I used a Oui yogurt glass container – can’t bring myself to throw them away – and it worked perfectly.

8. A little greenery (we had fresh rosemary and parsley blossoms) adds a nice fresh contrast to the dish.

9. Crackers or little slices of baguette are the perfect thing to serve on.

10. A small knife, fork and spoon are all you really need for serving. You could probably include toothpicks if you want, but we didn’t really need it with the little fork.

11.  You can cover it with plastic wrap or with the top of the pie tray if you have it.  ( I just peeled the label off carefully and it worked great.)

It’s a lovely thing to bring if you’re visiting and there’s always something for everyone.  Thanks for sharing your charcuterie knowledge with me, Caitlin!

 

 

Cranberry Jalapeno Dip

Leave a comment

joanna-kosinska-488793-unsp

Image courtesy of Joanna Kosinska – Unsplash

Someone brought this dip to Thanksgiving and we all loved it.  So I found a recipe and made it for a get-together with friends last night.  It is crazy easy, looks pretty on a plate and is difficult to leave alone!  (Based on a recipe from SnackinginSneakers.com but with a few changes.) Quite a few recipes called for twice as much sugar but this one was sweet enough.

Ingredients

12 oz fresh cranberries (one bag)
1 large jalapeno, quartered and chopped with stem, seeds and ribs removed
4 medium green onions, chopped
2 Tbsp fresh cilantro, chopped
1/2 cup sugar
1 Tbsp lemon juice
pinch of Kosher Salt

Two 14 oz. pkgs cream cheese or vegan cream cheese

Add cranberries, jalapeno and green onions to a food processor. Buzz a couple of times until you no longer see large chunks of  cranberries.

Add everything else and buzz for 30 more seconds. Turn out into a medium bowl and stir gently for a few minutes until sugar is dissolved.

Let sit for 30 minutes. Dump into a strainer and let excess liquid drain away for 5 minutes or so. It doesn’t need to be completely dry – just don’t want liquid running all over the serving platter.

Open foil surrounding each brick of cheese and slice horizontally into two thin layers. (You may not need all of it depending on the size of your platter.)

On a large white platter, arrange cheese to form a long, flat rectangle in the center. Neaten up the corners and edges and smooth the top with a knife. (You can stop at this point, cover the platter with cream cheese and hold it until you’re ready to serve.)

To serve, scoop the cranberry mix over the center top of the cheese and gently nudge it so it just sort of spills over the edges of the cheese. If you’ve saved a couple of cranberries and some Cilantro, you can add a few to the top.

If you’ve dashed off from home and left those behind, it’s still very festive looking.

Serve with a nice wheat cracker.

Also fantastic with leftover chicken or turkey in a sandwich.

Boursin-Style Cheese Dip

Leave a comment

I used the Boursin Cheese recipe from Food.com, and added a few more ingredients to make a slightly softer cheese spread.  This is great with crackers, flat bread or fresh veggies.

Ingredients:

8 oz butter, at room temperature
8 oz cream cheese, at room temperature
2 Tbsp mayonnaise
2 Tbsp plain yogurt (unsweetened, full-fat)
3 Tbsp grated fresh Parmesan cheese
1 tsp dried dill weed
1⁄2 tsp dried marjoram
1⁄2 tsp basil
1⁄2 tsp chives
1⁄2 tsp black pepper
1⁄2 tsp dried thyme, crumbled
2 Tbsp minced fresh parsley or 1 heaping Tbsp dried parsley
1 1/2 tsp garlic powder

Instructions:

Blend the butter, cream cheese, mayo, yogurt and parmesan cheese until smooth. Dump in all spices and mix well.

Can use immediately, but tastes better if it sits for a half hour or so.

Rosemary Focaccia

Leave a comment

Yesterday, Ree Drummond (the Pioneer Woman) featured a simple Rosemary Focaccia bread.  It was a cold, dreary afternoon and the thought of warm bread baking for supper was just irresistible. Plus, I had everything I needed to make it, since I brought my herb pots into the sunroom for the winter.

I served it with Ina’s Eggplant Gratin and both were easy and delicious.  In fact, I’m munching on leftover Focaccia this morning, warmed in the toaster and smeared with a little butter.

I made the recipe exactly as directed – only pulled it out of the oven after 25 minutes since it was golden brown.  This recipe looks complicated but it’s actually pretty simple.

Dough Ingredients:

4 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
2 Tbsp Olive Oil plus more for greasing the bowl and the pan
2 tsp dry yeast
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp kosher salt
1 1/2 cup warm water

Dump all in a mixing bowl. If you have a mixer, use the paddle and switch to the dough hook once it’s mixed. Let the dough hook run for several minutes, watching it as the dough will want to creep up the hook.

Remove the dough to a floured surface and knead gently until it is smooth and not sticky. (I may have used more flour – my dough wasn’t too sticky.) Rinse out the mixing bowl, dry it and spread olive oil all around it. Pop the dough back in, wiggle it around a second and the flip it over so all surfaces are oiled.

Cover it with oiled plastic wrap and set in a warm place to rise until doubled, about 1 hour.

Prepare topping ingredients:

1/4 cup plus 3 Tbsp Olive Oil
3 Tbsp chopped fresh Rosemary
Fleur de Sel (I used Maldon – but Kosher salt would be fine, too.)
Crushed Red Pepper to taste (couple of pinches)
Cornmeal as needed (a couple of Tbsp?)

After dough has risen, preheat oven to 400 degrees. Lay a piece of parchment paper on a cookie sheet or shallow roasting pan, and spread 1/4 cup of olive oil around on the pan. Sprinkle cornmeal evenly. Take dough and gently stretch it into a rectangle shape.

It’s a little easier if slide the parchment out of the pan and use a rolling pin to flatten the dough.  Just be sure to roll from the outside in so you don’t end up with a thick edge, and keep the size so it will fit back in the pan.

Then slide it all back into the backing pan, and cover it with an oiled piece of plastic. (I just flipped another roasting pan over it), and let rise for 20 minutes.

Remove the wrap (or pan), and poke holes every few inches. Pour the 3 Tbsp olive oil over the top, and sprinkle the rosemary, red pepper and Fleur de Sel over it.

Bake it for 25 minutes. It’s done when it’s golden brown. Cool on a wire rack.  (The original recipe called for baking 30-35 minutes.)  Yum.

Apricot-Orange Almond Goat and Cream Cheese Log

Leave a comment

It always seems like we’re noshing all day when everyone is home, and I wanted to try something different for New Year’s Eve. I made a version of Jenn Laughlin’s cheese spread and it was ridiculously delicious, and also so easy!

Ingredients

8 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature
1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese
1/3 cup almonds, crushed (I used Trader Joe’s Sesame Honey Almonds, but you can use regular salted almonds, or other slightly-sweetened almonds.)
1 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley (I used flat leaf parsley) or Basil
1/4 cup Sarabeth’s Orange Apricot Marmalade
4-5 dried apricots, chopped
honey for drizzling

Blend the cream cheese and feta cheese.

In a gallon zip lock bag, pound the almonds until they are crushed. (I used a wooden potato masher.) Add the parsley and apricots.  (I was out of apricots so I skipped them.)

On a long, narrow plate, carefully spoon out the Orange Apricot preserves. (We love Sarabeth’s Orange Apricot Marmalade, but you could use 1/2 apricot preserves, and 1/2 marmalade.)  I might use a big more marmalade next time, or try warming it and drizzling it over with the honey.

Carefully cut the top off the bag of nuts and parsley. Gather the cheese mixture into a roughly long log shape and drop it into the nuts mixture. Press the mixture into the bottom of the log, and then carefully rotate the log to get nuts on all side. You can also square up the ends of the log, and press nuts into them.

Carefully remove the cheese log and place it on the marmalade.  Drizzle lightly with honey. Garnish with a few parsley leaves, and serve with hearty crackers or slices of Granny Smith apples.

Jenn Laughlin says it’s also great with fig preserves.

Crudites with Dip

Leave a comment

Made this for Thanksgiving 2007, and 2013. I think the dip is originally a Martha Stewart recipe. Part of the fun is to have lots of different, interesting vegetables. I gathered lots of little clear glass containers for the veggies and put them on a tray, with the dip in the center. Prepping the veggies take a little time but it’s worth it. You can also serve hummus with roasted red pepper.

green beans, tips cut off and blanched
thin asparagus, trimmed and blanched
celery sticks
jicama sticks
cucumber spears
scallion sections
baby carrots
grape tomatoes
yellow squash spears
zucchini spears (Both the yellow squash and zucchini are surprisingly good with dip.)

Arrange in glasses and bowls and serve with dip, below:

1 cup sour cream
2 Tbsp buttermilk
1 tsp freshly-ground black pepper
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp minced chives
1/2 tsp fresh thyme leaves
1 large shallot, finely diced

Mix all in a large mason jar and refrigerate until just before serving. (Note, I didn’t write down salt when I wrote the recipe, but I’m certain I added some. Taste and add salt as needed.)

Note: blanching vegetables is super easy. It just means slightly cooking vegetables. I use a deep basket shaped strainer that I got an an Asian grocery store, but you can just do it with tongs if you don’t have a strainer that fits in your pot.

Here’s how you do it. Bring a medium sized pot of generously salted water to the boil, and have another large bowl of ice water close by.

Put veggies in very briefly, maybe 2 minutes. Remove and plunge veggies into ice water for a few minutes, until they don’t feel warm anymore. This softens them up just a bit without losing their crunch. It also keeps the colors nice and bright.