I’ve made meatballs in tomato juice and cranberry sauce. Simmered for hours on low in a crockpot, the sauce tastes nothing like tomatoes nor cranberries.
With mini-marshmallows, of course.
I endose this snack.
Also a block of cream cheese with Jalapeno jelly on top.
Of course!
I just remembered an amusing plot line from an otherwise so-so “fish out of water” sitcom called “Bless this Mess” involving this particular appetizer. This is all from memory, so I won’t get the details exactly right:
Dax Shepard and Lake Bell play a NYC couple who move to a small town in the Midwest. A town pot luck is coming up, and, eager to fit in, the Dax character asks his neighbor who is organizing the pot luck if he could be assigned a sure-fire hit for a dish to bring.
She tells him “here’s one you can’t screw up and is sure to please: put equal parts grape jelly and Heinz chili sauce into a crock pot. Don’t mix. Add meatballs.”
On pot luck day he’s excited for her to try his meatball dish. She does, and immediately yells out angrily “YOU MIXED IT!!!”
It’s the thought that counts!
But you’re absolutely right, fresh made tortillas are things that cannot be imagined by people who haven’t had the joy. I spent over 12 years living in southern New Mexico, and a couple of restaurants (!) had in-building factories which you could see them being made at as if it were Crispy Creme! No concerns about freshness when you saw them come from plancha to your table. And that leaves out various mamacitas that did it all by hand for their pop-ups.
The stuff done for most catering and/or mega mart pinwheels. Nope Nope Nope.
( aside: glad holidays are going well for you at the Home, I for one was worried that as the holidays rolled in that there would be opportunities for moping! )
Last night we enjoyed Salted Cantaloupe Jam on crackers, made by a neighbor. It was delicious, and I’d never heard of it before.
(Awww…that’s sweet. Au contraire to the max. This place is best described as a cross between a cruise ship and a sorority house. I am a card-carrying moper, so I won’t deny that there were a few moments. But doesn’t everyone have them around the holidays? There’s so much pressure to be happy, goddammit! I’m always relieved when Jan 1 is over. More elsewhere later. 
)
When I was a teenager we used to fry our own tortilla chips at a restaurant I worked at. We didn’t make the tortillas themselves from scratch, but I would routinely cut a big stack of round soft tortillas into quarters with a big chef’s knife and throw them into the fryer basket. I still remember the taste of the tortilla chips fresh out of the fryer. I’m sure I had a perpetually burned roof of my mouth and tongue, though.
Sate sticks are a big winner with me. I also like cocktail shrimp and just about anything I can make with phyllo (no recipe needed, just common sense). Cheese balls are not for me and neither is 'lil smokies in bbq sauce.
I don’t care for bacon-wrapped shrimp… it’s a bit too “hat on a hat”
Shrimp cocktail is the king of appetizers for me.
Runner-up would be a cheese ball of any stripe.
Deviled-eggs are one of the few foods I actively despise.
Bacon-wrapped shrimp, maybe, but bacon-wrapped scallops? The contrast of flavor and texture between the delicate scallop and the aggressively ‘bacony’ bacon is awesome.
Vienna sausage. It’s what’s for dinner ™.
They’re actually a lot better than they should be. I don’t make them myself, but whenever I go to a party, somebody seems to bring those, and those are among the first appetizers gone.
I like pretty much anything. My favorites in restaurants are fried mushrooms, but they need to be battered, not breaded, to achieve their maximum yumminess. Meanwhile, of common fried appetizers, I don’t like mozzarella sticks. They’re just … too much … or something for me.
More generally, I like pretty much any cold appetizer. There are many times I’m happy to just make a meal of them. Just gimme a selection of meze, some pita, and I’m a happy boy.
Same here. I have never made them either but they do seem to show up at a lot at parties and they do seem popular (I like them ok…I’ll certainly have a few).
Yeah, if see one of those big round planchas in a restaurant with abuelita mixing the masa? Yum! Freshly made tortilla chips from freshly made tortillas are sublime. Most places they’re dreadful.
Like the St. Louis Sushi?
Ha, that’s a new one on me. I had to google it. But then St. Louis, while still I suppose being the Midwest, is the very west Midwest, well west of me.
Appetizers, that is. I call that a “snack dinner.” Yum!
A Mermaids (after the movie) dinner!
I remember when apps were “cheap” at a restaurant. Then they figured out people would just eat the apps. So, now, apps at restaurants often cost the same as some mains.
As someone who would make a meal of a couple apps this bums me out.
I don’t get the love for these, my family makes them a lot and everyone raves. I can tolerate eggs, even like them in quiches or eggs benedict but these are so disgusting to me.
For favorite appetizers- I like any kind of chips/dip - our family makes up for deviled eggs by also adding a softened brick of cream cheese covered with salsa (always Pace Picante) and lots of avocado. Also, any type of shrimp appetizers and back to dips, I love crab, clam, salmon or smoked trout dip. Add some cheese, kielbasa and crackers and I don’t need a main meal.
Me, neither. I like eggs well enough, although hard-boiled isn’t my favorite. But deviled eggs are just hard boiled eggs that have been made to look pretty and taste a little worse. It seems like an awful lot of work to doll up a hardboiled egg.