Category Archives: Appetizers

Roasted Garlic Hummus

MMM! I love hummus and am especially lovin’ me some chickpeas these days. Greg happens to simultaneously be lovin’ roasted garlic these days so instead of plain hummus or edamame hummus I made roasted garlic hummus. This recipe is very simple and a great idea for a super bowl party or any other get togther you may be planning.

 Not surprisingly, the first thing you want to do is roast the garlic. Well, technically the first thing I did was soak my dry chickpeas overnight and then get them boiling in water. Feel free to avoid this step and use canned chickpeas if you’d prefer. It will certainly speed up your prep time and make this even that much easier to make. Anyway, back to the good stuff- the garlic! Cut the top off the bulb, drizzle with some olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Wrap up the bulb in tin foil and roast in the (toaster) oven for about 45 minutes. Once it’s cool enough to handle, squeeze out the garlic from the shell. It should be relatively easy to do.

Sprinkle with some salt and mash it up into a paste.

Add this to the food processor along with 1/2 cup tahini paste and a little water. Blend until it forms a smooth, white liquid.

Then add the 1 cup of chickpeas, about 1.5 tsp each of salt and pepper, juice from 1/2 a lemon, and pulse. Drizzle in about 1/2 cup of olive oil as the mixture is blending. Taste and add more lemon juice, S &P, etc as needed.

Top with paprika and olive oil. Serve with pita chips and veggies!

 Delicious and healthy. Hope you enjoy!

-E

Caprese with Lemon Basil Pesto

Oh, Summer… so sad to see it come to an end but luckily the produce from the summer crops are still going strong. We have been growing these lovely little tomatoes all summer and have been thoroughly enjoying them. One of our favorite ways to have them is with fresh basil and penn mac’s fresh mozzarella, extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar. So simple, so good. Recently, we received some ‘lemon-basil’ in our CSA and naturally a pesto came to mind.

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Zucchini Planks

We’ve been in Pittsburgh for a whole year now and we have been loving it, especially all the great food! We have created some of our Pittsburgh favorites, such as pierogies and Italian Wedding Soup, both staples of many restaurants here, and here is another dish commonly seen on menus around town- fried zucchini. We had some fresh mozzarella in the fridge and zucchini and I decided to whip this up. It took all of about 15 minutes from start to finish and was delicious!

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First Try Homemade Cheese……Finger Sandwiches

I recently ordered a homemade mozzarella and ricotta making kit.  I have tried to make the mozzarella twice, and both times it has not quite worked out.  The problem is that most standard grocery store milk has been pasteurized at too high of a temperature and the enzymes have been damaged and cannot form strong enough curds.  I have just learned all of this by the way.  So when this happens, it says to use the mixture as a cheese spread which I have used here to make finger sandwiches for a recent party.  Look forward to a successful mozzarella post soon, but in the meantime….makeshift party finger sandwiches!

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Buffalo Chicken Meatballs

This was the other superbowl dish.  Not as easy as the sausage dip, but not too bad.  They can be pan fried or baked, these were pan fried.

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Sausage Stuffed Mushrooms

When we were in Phoenix for Thanksgiving, my sister made these stuffed mushrooms for an appetizer and I absolutely loved them. It was just a matter of time before I found the perfect occasion to make them myself. I decided to give it a go on Christmas day and served them as an appetizer. They’d also be a great side dish.

As you can see from the photo I super stuffed these mushrooms, stacking extra filling on top. I still wound up with some extra stuffing despite this and they were not the most photogenic or pretty as they could have been, but I figured more stuffing > pretty mushrooms. After later conversing with my sister, she suggested having some extra mushroom caps handy to stuff, as it will be inevitable to have extra stuffing. Good to know!   Continue reading

White Bean Hummus with Roasted Garlic

I had some leftover great northern beans in my pantry from when I made the chicken chili. I have made hummus with edamame before, so why not make it with the white beans? I remember reading a post for white bean hummus on How Sweet It Is a while back and decided to check it out. Jessica’s addition of roasted garlic seemed brilliant so I followed her recipe. The only change I made was adding lemon juice at the end.

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Buffalo Chicken Dip

This is a recipe from our friend Mary (aka Murrs) that has always been a big hit.  We tweaked it a bit and it was a big hit again because everyone loves buffalo and blue cheese!

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Homemade Onion Rings

Onion rings are a fun food you don’t often make at home. We were deep frying chicken (you’ll see that soon too!) and figured why not throw something else in there too for a tasty side dish. My mind immediately went to onion rings, so here you go.

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Crispy Fried Eggplant and Mozzarella Finger Sandwiches

I am sorry to say that most of these pictures are slightly out of focus. Our camera has a mind of it’s own sometimes and I just couldn’t get it to agree with me when I was cooking today. I was also running around the kitchen, cooking and trying to take pictures all at the same time. I apologize in advance, but hopefully that won’t deter you from enjoying this recipe!

Believe it or not, I found this recipe in a Suzanne Somer’s book several years ago. It has been a while since I made it, but I had a bunch of little eggplants and some fresh mozzarella in the fridge so I gave it a go.

These guys were little.  I got them from a farmer’s market (this is about half of what I got for $2.50).

The first step was to slice up the eggplant and roast the slices in the oven for about 20 minutes with a little olive oil and salt and pepper.

While the eggplant was cooking, I made the herb spread (aka pesto), which was comprised of garlic, basil, oregano (which I substituted for parsley), red pepper flakes, and olive oil. I used the bullet for this.

I also prepped my work station for the next steps of the recipe. I used fresh mozzarella for the sandwiches, but if you don’t have any on hand you can use shredded or sliced. There is something about the way fresh mozzarella melts though that makes it extra special, so I definitely recommend it for this dish.

After assembling the sandwiches, the next step is to dip them in egg and coat them with grated cheese. So I prepped my egg dip and cheese for that as well.

Now for the sandwich assembly…

Basically all you do is take a slice of eggplant and spoon the herb spread over it. Add the mozzarella and then put a second slice of eggplant on top. Easy peasy.

Next, dip the sandwich into the egg and then roll it around in the grated cheese to coat.

Once you have all of your sandwiches coated it’s time to fry ‘em up. They just need a couple minutes per side. Enough time for the cheese in the center to melt and for the eggplant to turn a nice golden brown.

When they are done place them onto a paper towel covered plate to drain any excess oil. Serve ‘em up nice and hot and feel free to add any fillings you like. I’ve added roasted red peppers before, for example. They are also good served with marinara sauce on the side for dipping if you’d like.

Yum! These are so good!

Recipe for Crispy Fried Eggplant and Mozzarella Finger Sandwiches

-Eileen