ultimate blue cheese dressing/dip

Does blue cheese dressing merit its own post? Like, without an accompanying salad recipe? I wouldn’t have believed it but I’ve gotta say…yes, yes it does.

summer appetizer: feta packets!

I am totally in love with this recipe. Like, we had it with dinner last night and used all our feta, but I want to go back and get more and eat it all by myself for lunch it’s so good. It’s like a magic little packet that you throw in the oven only imagining that it’ll probably be good but then you pull it out and it’s melty and aromatic and delicious, and it’s like opening a christmas present in summer. And the best thing is, not only does it taste good, I think it may be the easiest and most low maintenance appetizer I know, which makes it fabulous for summer when I don’t want to spend too much time in my hot kitchen– it’s definitely a throw and go kind of thing so you can stay away from the oven. And, if it happens to be just too hot to turn on your oven, you can take this one outside and throw the packet on the grill! And regardless of the time of year, for entertaining purposes you can’t argue with a recipe you can prepare in advance (in 5 minutes) and then store in its own packet in the fridge until you’re ready, then just pop it on some heat for 15 minutes and it’s ready to serve. Add bread and it’ll be a snap when guests arrive to keep yourself out of the kitchen and at the table, snacking away with everyone else.

simple party food

This is a long-overdue post of the array of snackables we tried out for New Years Eve, and with the Super Bowl on the horizon I thought I’d share some of my favorites for those of you who, like me, tend to decide at the last minute that some appetizers are in order! If you’re looking for something easy and cheap but a little more elegant than jalapeno poppers, tater skins and lil smokies, these will serve you well!

The more parties I host, the more I realize the importance of simple but delicious flavor combinations. Even if you plan days in advance, when you’re putting together a selection of snacks, you really can’t afford to be running around from store to store buying a zillion specialty ingredients, or spending hours putting just one appetizer together. You need snacks that can be easily assembled with a minimum of prep work, and you need to be able to do your prep without a lot of fussing over the timing of serving things perfectly hot. Basically, you need things to be as low-maintenance as possible, ideally with an ingredient list less than five items long.  The snacks listed here satisfied those requirements for me, and they all proved simple to whip out en masse for a crowd.