Category — Appetizer + Snack Recipes

And now I present an old-fashioned recipe  from the inimitable Miz Crocker that manages to combine sausage, cheese, and Bisquick in a pretty delicious (yet a tiny bit disgusting) way – a BALL.

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I saw this post on Good Life Eats about all of the easy things you can do with feta, and I realized I’ve never shared one of my favorite last-minute appetizers: feta with stuff on it.

My mom taught me this trick to transform a boring ol’ block of feta into a somewhat shmancy-seeming appetizer in like 10 seconds. All you do is take a block of good quality brined feta out of the brine. Put it on a plate or in a shallow bowl. Drizzle it with good olive oil and sprinkle it with chopped herbs (oregano or mint are my two favorites.) Sprinkle coarse salt on top (I used black salt from Hawaii but any salt will do) and a cracking of pepper. Serve it with a baguette, crackers, or pita chips. People will not realize how little work you put into this, because it looks good and tastes even better!

It’s probably not technically accurate to call this tasty soybean dip “hummus” but you should think of it as a descriptive, evocative name, not a culturally accurate one. (I’m not alone in this – for example, they’re pretty conflicted about this, among other aspects of edamame hummus, over at The Delicious Life.) But no matter what you want to call it, it turns out if you give soybeans a somewhat hummus-like treatment, you get a whole lotta tasty. Here’s my take on the meme.

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I had some  good quality feta left over and then I was also hungry and had limited items in the fridge. So I invented a dip on the fly to go with some crackers I had laying around and it worked out really well.

I think this would be great with pita or pita chips as well. I didn’t give any amounts in the recipe, because it’s not an exact science and should be put together to taste. I guarantee you won’t mess it up! I like to use a milder feta and a tangy yogurt like Fage or another Greek or Persian yogurt. If you want to make this lower fat you can use lowfat or nonfat yogurt, but it won’t be quite as rich and creamy.

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I had a major popcorn craving the other day. I was in a big supermarket and couldn’t find regular popcorn- only microwave. In a HUGE store. That is a travesty because microwave popcorn has nothing on fresh-popped kernels from the stovetop. At any rate after hitting up a fancier store I bought some organic popcorn and set to work on handling that craving, and decided just to target all possible cravings in one go. Popcorn, check. Salt, check. Sugar, check.

I love things that are salty and sweet and I love popcorn and I love the way my Dad used to make caramel corn when I was a kid. All of those loves combined into this quick and easy combination. I have never liked caramel corn that was too sticky or crunchy so this method creates a palatable texture, takes less time, and uses 1 pot for everything.

Salty-Sweet Caramel Popcorn
Serves 2-4 for snacking.

Ingredients:

• 1-2 Tblsp oil
• 1/2 cup popcorn kernels
• 1/4 cup butter
• 2/3 cup light brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt

Method:

• Put oil and popcorn into a big pot and put a lid on. (If you have a pot with a clear glass lid, well that makes it a lot more fun.)
• Turn heat on medium high. Keep your hand on the lid. When you start hearing popping, hold the lid down and shake the pot on the stove.
• When popping is mostly done and gets slower, turn off the heat. Wait a minute or two before removing lid as corn will keep popping.
• Remove popcorn to bowl and set aside. In same pot, melt butter over medium heat.
• Add sugar and salt and mix with a whisk. Heat until it boils. It will separate at first then it will become lighter in color and a bit foamy.
• Turn off heat and pour popcorn into caramel, tossing to coat. Mix well and pour back into bowl.

This is a great and easy appetizer- but since I don’t really like breakfast food and I had some very ripe heirloom tomatoes staring at me as I prepared my cup of tea, I ate this for breakfast today. At 9 AM. DELICIOUS. I’m weird like that. I justified it by telling myself that since it was on toast and toast is a breakfast food it was OK. But you will probably want to make this later on in the day, at which time it would be more socially acceptable. Like, before dinner would be good.

Heirloom tomatoes are in season, and they are worth highlighting whatever chance you get! I never liked tomatoes until my mid-20s, when I tasted an heirloom tomato, at which point I realized I was just a huge tomato snob who didn’t like mealy, flavorless supermarket varieties- only the very best. Luckily the trend has caught on, and you can now get heirloom tomatoes in many major supermarkets, as well as fancy stores like Whole Foods, or, of course, a farmers’ market. Since the tomatoes are so good, they need hardly any embellishment- just a few accoutrements to bring out their bursting flavor and candy sweetness.

I’m not giving specific amounts in this recipe, because I figure you might want to make a lot or a little, and this isn’t rocket science, it’s like, a piece of toast with some stuff on it. So I have complete confidence that if I give you the general concept, you will be able to figure out how to do it in a way that works for you.

Crispy Toasts With Fresh Ricotta and Heirloom Tomatoes

Ingredients:

• crusty bread or baguette, sliced (I used country sourdough)
• fresh ricotta cheese (I used Bellwether Farms Jersey Ricotta)
• heirloom tomatoes, chopped (I used 2 colors so it would be prettier and tastier)
• good quality extra-virgin olive oil (I used Stonehouse)
• coarse salt (I used cyprus black salt from Whole Foods because it looks cool)

Method:

• Toast the bread. If you’re just making a few, you can just use the toaster, but if you’re making a lot, lay the bread out on a pan in a single layer and toast both sides in the oven.
• If necessary, cut toasts into smaller finger-food-sized pieces.
• Spread each toast with a layer of the ricotta. Top with chopped tomatoes.
• Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle salt on top. Serve immediately.
• You could add chopped herbs if desired, but if the tomatoes are at their peak there is no need.

I first fell in love with fava beans while cooking at Rose Pistola, where I had some inkling of how they were prepared but never actually had to DO it myself- since there was always a prep cook ready to take my gigantic bag of dirty old pods into the back room and return a couple of hours later with a little container of gorgeous, glistening prepared fava beans.

They are not my favorite thing to prepare myself, sans eager-beaver prep cook guy, because they need to be shelled not once, but twice, which is pretty annoying and time-consuming. Also, you have to buy a rather large amount in order for them to yield a relatively meager pile of usable end-product.

However, I tend to forget these facts from year to year. So about once every spring, I see them in some market stall and buy them, and then I end up taking them home and fooling around with them for hours and hours and making something that is annoyingly DELICIOUS. Why annoyingly? Because if they weren’t delicious then I’d never be tempted to mess with them, I’d just leave them for some other poor sucker.

first shelling: so many pods, so few beans to show for it.

second shelling: yet another big pile of detritus for an ever-shrinking pile of beans.

This item was inspired by the yummy appetizer I ate recently at Beretta, but I didn’t see the need to cover it with oil and cheese as they did. It is maddeningly, disgustingly, irritatingly tasty and fresh and wonderful as it is and I wish I could make and eat it about once a week, but that just isn’t going to happen. Unless, of course, I stop working and devote more time to cooking each day, or until the glorious day that I’m wealthy enough to employ a cadre of servants in my home. So, yeah, probably never.

Fava Bean Bruschetta
this will make enough appetizers for 6-8 people.

Ingredients:

• about 1 lb. fava beans, in their pods
• 1/2 cup spinach leaves
• 1/4 cup packed mint leaves
• zest and juice of 1 lemon
• 1 clove crushed garlic
• 1/2 cup grated parmesan
• olive oil to taste/texture- probably about 1/3 cup
• salt to taste (about 1 tsp.)
• 16 slices good quality fresh baguette, about 1/2 inch thick

Method:

• Remove fava beans from pods and discard pods. Boil a pot of salted water and cook the beans about 2-3  minutes. Strain and pour cold water over them until they are warm. Squeeze beans until insides pop out and discard shells.
• Combine beans, spinach, mint, lemon, garlic, parmesan, and salt in a food processor and pulse to combine and chop. Add oil, about 1 Tblps at a time, until mixture is thick but spreadable. Adjust salt and oil as needed.
• Heat broiler of oven. Arrange bread on a pan and toast lightly on both sides.
• Remove bread from oven and spread a thick layer of fava bean paste on bread. Serve immediately.
• If you have leftover paste, you can thin it out with cream or olive oil and toss it with pasta.

You probably already know that the hummus at Trader Joe’s is pretty tasty. I used to make hummus from scratch but now I often just make the TJ’s hummus all fancy looking and homemade and even tastier which is easier and actually just as good as homemade. So, buy the hummus, put it in a different bowl, drizzle some high quality olive oil over it, sprinkle with fleur de sel or black flake salt, and then sprinkle over a good amount of garam masala or ground cumin. I’m eating some right now.

I love the multigrain pita chips at TJ’s too! Or, even better, you can also make your own hot delicious pita chips by cutting up pita bread, drizzling with olive oil and salt, and baking them in the oven for 10 or 15 minutes until crispy.

I had a fun Easter. It was a gorgeous day in Oakland, the first downright HOT day we’ve had in forever.  So what did I do?

I was inspired to combine the technique of soaking peeled eggs in beet juice to turn the whites purple (an idea I got from the lovely VeggieVenture) and the technique of making Chinese Tea Eggs. So I boiled the eggs, then cracked their shells a bit and soaked them in the beet juice for about 2 hours.

They looked aMAAAAzing when they came out, with soft spidery lines of purple, but unfortunately faded within about an hour! I think next year I will go with the full-on purple egg whites thing, and forget the fancy crack-a-lacking action. Although, I really hate beets so the beet juice thing was grossing me out. I did get a laugh because the store was playing that 80s song “We Got The Beat” while I was buying the cans of beets. I was singing “I Got The Beets… everybody… I Got The Beets… in a caaaaan…”

Anyhoo, after that grossed out-excited-disappointed emotional parabola, I dyed eggs with my niece and nephew. Pretty!

Then I made deviled eggs out of the beet eggs, and some of the dyed eggs. I mixed it up this year and tried some new stuff and everyone said they were better than usual. So here’s the recipe!

Deviled Eggs

Ingredients:

• hard boiled eggs
• mayonnaise
• whole grain mustard
• tabasco (optional)
• chopped parsley
• salt and freshly ground pepper

Method:

• Peel hard-boiled eggs and cut them in half. Remove the yolks to a bowl.
• Mash yolks with a fork until crumbly. Add mayo a bit at a time until the eggs are just bound together.
• Add whole grain mustard to taste. For 12 eggs, I added about 1 tablespoon. Salt and pepper liberally.
• Add chopped parsley (about 1 tablespoon for 12 eggs.)
• Add a few splashes of tabasco if desired, depending on how much kick you want to give it.
• Taste and adjust seasoning. Using a spoon, fill the centers with a dollop of yolks.
• Sprinkle plate with parsley and grind pepper over the eggs.