Almighty dopers, I am hosting a simple soiree (oxy moron alert!). I have decided to have some fun experimenting with random appetizers and finger foods - so I thought I would see what y’all like to do.
Current plans:
Sauteed mushrooms on toast with melted brie (a fan favorite)
Thinly sliced steak wrapped around green onion / chive / lemon grass and a mushrrom
I will have a cheese board and veggies & dip - but what would you toss out? I have most cooking implements (gas grill, wok, oven space) - but I don’t want one thing that requires ALL of my attention.
Another fun thing you can do is tea-stained eggs. The recipe I have calls for anise, but I don’t really like it so I leave it out.
Hard-boil eggs the day before. Carefully crack but don’t peel them. Add in two or three (black) tea bags and leave in the fridge overnight. In the morning peel them. They’ll be a lovely marbelized color (I think they look like fossils myself, other people have said they look like eyes). Cut in half and serve as is. They’ll taste lightly of tea.
Bake several smallish potatoes, like Yukon golds. When they’re tender, slice them in half lengthwise, scoop out the insides, but leave about 1/2" of flesh still adhering to the skin.
Salt and pepper them, fill them with grated white cheddar cheese and put them under a broiler for a few minutes, or until the cheese is melted and the edges of the taters are crusty. Serve them still warm with these garnishes, for everyone to use as they prefer:
Real ranch dressing
Sour cream
Chopped chives or green onions
Crisp bacon bits
Finely diced tomatoes
Jalapeno slices
Candied bacon (google it, there are a few different ways to make it, all easy)
something I did for Xmas, my aunt and I are gluten intolerant and while some sweet person bought a bunch of goat cheese for us we had nothing to eat it with/on
so I did the following
slice up some taters into 1/8th-1/4th inch wafers,
olive oil into your biggest skillet
drop in taters and cook on med or so till golden on both sides, turning to be sure to get both sides.
while cooking add salt and pepper and or whatever you like.
when done drain/cool on a paper towel and drop some goat cheese on each tater slice then serve. (note the will cook faster if you cover the skillet for the first part, just make sure they get a couple min uncovered so they crisp up)
(Wow, I suck at posting links and am heading to the SDMB tutorial to hone my skills!)
These actually look so good, I think I’ll make some for own my little New Year’s gathering. Okay, it’s not a gathering – more like my husband and me having a couple of cocktails and eating some unhealthy food while we watch DVDs. So I’ll cut the recipe WAY back.
I think the usual flavoring (in addition to tea, of course) is five-spice powder and maybe a little soy sauce.
My taiji teacher would make these for parties. He’d boil the eggs then leave them in a crock pot with the flavoring liquid to keep them warm during the party, so as time went on they’d get stronger. He wouldn’t bother “carefully cracking” them; he’d just stir the contents of the crock pot every so often and let the eggs crack that way.
I concur. Tea eggs made just with tea aren’t going to taste of much. (If you can’t get five-spice, you can substitute anise.) I prefer my tea eggs sliced over rice, sprinkled with seaweed. Yum!
Do some interesting roll-ups- they don’t take long to make, and you can make something that everyone will like. Get whatever you’re going to use for a filling, spread it onto a tortilla, roll it up, and slice into thin slices. You can do these early and leave them in the fridge before slicing (they’ll actually work better that way).
Smoked salmon and cream cheese is good, and there are a lot of things you can mix with cream cheese or other softened cheese that will roll up nicely and taste great. I especially like goat cheese and sun-dried tomato spread- it looks nice and festive.
I’ve made the following, which was a rousing success:
mushrooms, sliced
garlic (lots)
prosciutto or other thinly sliced ham
toast
Sauté the mushrooms in oil with lots of garlic. Salt and pepper to taste. On a small slice of toast, place a slice of prosciutto and a couple of mushroom slices on top.
Also, dates wrapped into a half-slice of bacon and baked in a hot oven until crispy have been a hit.
The above-mentioned rolls are a really good idea, too. I’ve used cream cheese and smoked salmon many times, especially on bagels; adding a bit of salad on top after it’s been sliced makes it a bit more fresh. (Then again, usually when I’ve been eating cream-cheese-smoked-salmon bagels I’ve had a hangover, so the salad really helps then.:))
I just made these the other day and they were really good.
olive-cheese biscuits
1 jar green olives drained and patted dry
1 stick butter-softened
2 Cups shredded chedder
1 cup flour
1 tsp cumin
a couple dashes of your favorite hot sauce- I like smoked chipoltle.
S&P
Mix everything but the olives into a dough. wrap the olives in the dough and place on cookie sheet. Put in freezer for 5 minutes while oven heats to 350. Put olives in for 15 minutes or until golden brown.
I think I might experiment with black olives and other types of cheese this weekend.
I love this! I would like to make and take to a party later on. Here’s the dilemma. I need to leave the house a 4:30 and won’t be putting the loaf in an oven until around 10. Would it be possible to make it and freeze it this afternoon, leave it in the cold trunk for several hours and then bake it late tonight so it’s piping hot and fresh or would my best bet be to go ahead and bake it this afternoon and either heat it up or just serve it at room temp? Thanks! Also, when do you form the dough into biscuits, or is it baked as a loaf?
Sorry I missed this. I hope your plan worked out. I would think that it would work just fine as long as the trunk was cold. Let me know what you thought. I made a batch yesterday with black olives stuffed with pepper jack. The cheese I used in the batter was a mix of “pizza cheese” and a 6 cheese italian blend. I haven’t baked them yet but I plan on trying them tonight.
