Delicious Easy Appetizer: Green Olive & Artichoke Crostini

 

Every once in a while we'll have guests over for an Italian feast, and we always want to be sure that everyone will leave full. Serving a tasty appetizer is an easy way to do that. The perfect appetizer takes just a few minutes to prepare, so that you can focus on the rest of your preparation, yet is hearty, and full of flavor, so your guests will think you spent hours slaving away.

These green olive and artichoke crostini fit the bill perfectly. They're so flavorful, yet require virtually no cooking or preparation time. You simply throw everything into a food processor, toast the crostini, and plate. The olive gives you salty satisfaction while the artichoke is smooth and delicious. Whip these up for your next party and watch as your guests devour them all.

Making the Dish
What You'll Need

1 cup green olives, pitted
1 can artichoke hearts, drained
1 tbsp capers, drained (optional, but recommended)
1/4 cup grated pecorino romano
2 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
1 clove garlic, whole
1/4 cup olive oil
1 baguette, cut into 1/4 in thick slices

In a food processor, combine the olives, artichoke hearts, capers, pecorino, and garlic. Pulse a few times, and then start to drizzle in the olive oil, pulsing continuously, until a nice smooth  yet still slightly chunky mixture has formed.

Taste it, and season with salt and pepper if needed.

Lay out the baguette slices on a baking sheet and toast them or put them under the broiler for a few minutes, toasting each side until crispy.

Let the pieces cool slightly, and when warm enough to handle, take the remaining whole garlic piece, and rub it against the top of each piece. You're basically rubbing the garlic into the crispy bread. This will give you a very nice garlic-y flavor. You may need to use more than one clove of garlic depending on how much bread you have, but try not to put too much garlic on each crostini - it is very intense!

Spoon a portion of the olive and artichoke mixture onto each crostini. Drizzle extra olive oil over top if desired, although not necessary, and serve! Watch as your guests devour!

One Year Ago: Tajarin ail Sugo di Arrosto

The Best Superbowl Party Recipes from Around the Web

It's been a while since our last weekend inspiration round up but we thought there was a pretty great reason to do so today - Superbowl Parties! If you're hosting or attending one and looking for something to make, we've found the best - and easiest! - recipes from across the web for you to try. We'll be making some of these ourselves this weekend, and are looking forward to it!

Bloomin' Onion Bread from The Girl who Ate Everything

Turnip Green Dip from Lana's Cooking

Pizza Dip from The Brown Eye'd Baker

Meatball Sliders from Ezra Pound Cake

Baked Chicken Taquitos from Very Culinary

Mini Corn Dog Muffins from Iowa Girl Eats

Canellini Dip from The Tasteful Life

No-Mayo Spinach and Artichoke Dip from Herbie Likes Spaghetti

We hope you have a great weekend and find this helpful! If you do, please follow us on Twitter so that you don't miss all our new recipes. And please leave a comment below letting us know what you did for the big game!

A Healthy, Easy Superbowl Snack: Fajita-Spiced Roasted Chickpeas

 

Superbowl Sunday is coming up here in the USA and we're planning on hosting a raucous party in our 700  sq ft apartment. The most important part of a superbowl party is beer and food, but it's easy to go overboard and eat a lot of unhealthy stuff. To counter this, last week we presented you with a no-mayo spinach artichoke dip that will blow your mind. Today, we bring you a healthy, tasty, zesty snack that's incredibly easy to make.

These chickpeas are lightly seasoned with a blend of spices that will give it a slightly tex-mex-esque flavor. Then, they're roasted for 30 - 45 minutes at high heat until they get nice and crispy. The result is a tasty little snack that's great to munch on, is just as flavorful as a bag of potato chips, and much, much healthier.

Making the Snack
What You'll Need

Two cans of chickpeas, rinsed, with excess skins peeled off
1 tbsp olive oil

For the spice blend
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp coriander
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp chile powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder

After rinsing the chickpeas, let then rest on paper towel, dabbing off excess water, and let air dry for about 15 minutes. While resting, preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

Mix the spices together in a small bowl. Then, place the chickpeas in a mixing bowl, drizzle on the olive oil, and throw in the spices. Mix together until the spices are evenly distributed.

Lay the chickpeas down into a baking dish in one layer. Place the baking dish in the oven. Roast the chickpeas for 20 minutes. Then, using a spoon, turn the chickpeas over. Cook for another 20 or so minutes, until the chickpeas are very dry but not burnt.








Remove the chickpeas from the baking dish after they've completed cooking, and hand out to your friends to enjoy!

The finished fajita roasted chickpeas

The Result
These little snack bites are crispy, crunchy, very flavorful, and super healthy. They are incredibly easy to make, and will be a party favorite. Serve them up this Superbowl Sunday and delight your guests!

One Year Ago: Genoa Cheese Bread (also happens to be great for a party!)

Low Fat, No Mayo, Spinach and Artichoke Dip - Get Ready for the Superbowl

 

Spinach and artichoke dip (or crab and artichoke dip) is a guilty pleasure of ours. If it's brought out at a party that we're at, act fast because we'll be secretly gobbling it up. If it's on the menu at a bar, notice how one of us will subtly suggest it gets ordered. It's just so delicious - cheesy, creamy, goodness, and since there's veggies in it, one can argue that it's healthy, right?

Fresh spinach makes all the differences

With the Superbowl only a few weeks away, we figured it'd be time to test out a recipe to call our own. Neither of us are really fans of the idea that our beloved snack is filled with a heaping glob of mayo, so we did a recipe without it. And since we wanted ours to be super flavorful and fresh, we opted for fresh spinach. The result? Better than anything we'd ordered at a restaurant before. Don't believe us? Throw this together and see for yourself!

Chopped artichoke hearts

Making the Dish
What you'll need
1 clamshell container of fresh baby spinach
2, 15 oz cans artichoke hearts, drained and chopped
1/2 block colby jack cheese
4 oz cream cheese (we used the low fat kind, with no regrets)
7 oz sour cream (we used the low fat kind, with no regrets)
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp coriander
salt and pepper to taste
1 tbsp olive oil

Sautéing the spinach and garlic

1. Preheat your oven to 375. Chop up the spinach into small pieces, and mince up the garlic. In a non stick pan over medium heat, heat up the olive oil, and then sauté the spinach and garlic until the spinach has wilted - just a few minutes.

2. Combine the sour cream, cream cheese, and monterey jack cheese into a mixing bowl. Add in the spinach and garlic.

3. Chop up the artichoke hearts until they're nice and small, to about the size you'd want to eat. Add it to the mixing bowl with the spinach and cheeses

4. Add in your seasonings - paprika, cayenne, coriander, salt, and pepper. Then, stir like crazy until everything is combined.

5. Place the mixture into a baking dish and top with extra colby jack cheese if desired. Then place the baking dish into the oven and let bake for 20 - 30 minutes, until the cheese is browned on the top.















The Result
Dig into this with crackers, bread, whatever you'd like. Be careful at first because it's hot. It will be hard to slow down because it's so good. The spices and the garlic are a nice addition and make up for the fact that there's no mayo. And with low fat cream cheese and sour cream, it's hard to feel guilty eating this.

What're your superbowl plans? Anything exciting on your list of party appetizers? We've got another party snack for you next week, so subscribe or follow us on twitter so you don't miss it.

One Year Ago: Pasta with Mushroom and Sage 

An Appetizer to Impress: Eggplant Involtini

 

A few years ago we had our first helping of Eggplant Involtini at a restaurant in Chicago. The meal overall was pretty good, but we were really excited about the eggplant appetizer. It combined three of our favorite things - eggplant, ricotta, and tomato sauce - into one dish.

That sounds too good to be true! I will pounce on it!

It seemed like the kind of thing that we would never be able to pull off at home. The eggplant was rolled up around the cheese mixture... that seemed pretty hard! Turns out, it is not. Nor is the recipe all that complicated. In fact, this turns out to be one of the simpler dishes we've made. That said, it's amazing. We've served it to friends who don't eat eggplant and they've loved it. So next time you see a nice looking Italian eggplant at the store, pick it up and give this recipe a try.

Making the Dish
What You'll Need
Olive oil, for frying the eggplant
2 Italian eggplants
2 cups basic tomato sauce
1 cup ricotta cheese
1 egg
1 tablespoon freshly chopped parsley
1 tablespoon thinly sliced scallions
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg


This is a dish made of three parts - the eggplant, the cheese filling, and the sauce. We won't go into the sauce in this blog post - just make a simple tomato sauce ahead of time or use a marinara sauce in a jar. For ours, we made a vibrant, chunky tomato sauce with hint of basil and red wine.

Sliced eggplant with fresh chopped parsley.

Start off by preparing the eggplant. Slice off the ends of the eggplant, and then slice down the eggplant vertically to create 1/4 - 1/2 in strips. Soak the strips in salt water for about 20 - 30 minutes. This removes some of the bitter liquid from the eggplant. Then remove and pat dry.

Frying the eggplant in hot olive oil.

When you have your strips ready, pour some olive oil into a non-stick pan and turn to medium-high heat. Gently slip the eggplant slices into the oil once it starts to smoke, and cook for about 45 seconds to 1 minute on a side until the side is browned. Then turn over and flip again. You don't want to burn it, but you do want to caramelize it. Remove the eggplant from the oil and let drain on a paper towel.

Draining the fried eggplant on a paper towel. 

Do this in batches until all your strips are done.

All the ingredients for the filling combined together. 

While the eggplant is resting, prepare your mixture. In a mixing bowl, combine 1 cup of fresh ricotta cheese with one beaten egg, a tablespoon of fresh chopped parsley, a tablespoon of fresh thinly sliced scallions, salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Mix it all together until everything is thoroughly combined.

Creamy ricotta cheese mixture. 

Next comes the fun part. Spread your sauce around on a baking dish to coat the bottom. Then, take about one to two tablespoons of the filling and place it on the end of the eggplant strip. Roll the eggplant around it until you've created a tube, and place the tube seam side down on the baking dish.

A dollop of ricotta filling onto the eggplant. 

Do this until all of your eggplant are filled and the cheese filling is depleted. Then, cover the involtini with the remaining tomato sauce. If you want, you can top it with mozzarella cheese, but we've found that it ends up being quite a bit lighter without.

Rolling the eggplant around the filling. 

Place the baking dish into the oven, preheated to 375 degrees, and let bake for about 15 - 20 minutes, until you can see the cheese mixture bubbling and mixing with the sauce.

Eggplant involtini on a bed of sauce. 

Remove from the oven, let sit for a few minutes, and then serve.

Our eggplant involtini gets ready to go into the oven. 

The Result
Garnished with fresh parsley and a sprinkling of grated cheese, you have yourself one tremendous appetizer that will satisfy your stomach and your spirit. This is really one of our favorite things to make, and is a great way to start a meal of pasta, meat, or really anything. If you make a big batch of sauce, you can use the rest for a pasta dish or to braise a nice piece of meat.

What's your favorite appetizer? Let us know in the comments below!