Category: Appetizers

Rest, Relaxation and Recovery

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In the last few posts we hinted that we were busy with an adventure or two. Well, we returned home today. We’re well rested, relaxed and in need of a post-vacation recovery. You know how those go…we ate too much, we packed a lot into a span of a few days and well, we traveled with two kids. It was a blast, it was memorable, it was full of laughs and smiles, and it was down-right exhausting.

Not to worry though, we’ll be back soon with that overly caloric, but fantastically delicious birthday/date night recipe we enjoyed a few weeks ago as well as some new Cuban cuisine. Until then, we thought we’d revisit a healthy and seasonal recipe from last year because quite frankly we need some healthy food this week. 😉 So enjoy, and feel free to take a guess where we were (Shhhh…if you already know!).  Continue reading →

Date Night

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Remember back around our wedding anniversary post, we mentioned our date night to a local bistro and the amazing stuffed date appetizer we enjoyed? Well, we finally recreated our own version and, spoiler alert, we’ve made it several times over the past few weeks. It’s that good.

The restaurant version featured dates stuffed with blue cheese, wrapped with bacon and drizzled with a balsamic reduction. Our version is Goat Cheese Stuffed Dates with a Balsamic Reduction. It made for a great light dinner one evening, a side dish to another meal and most recently an appetizer for a backyard dinner party with friends. It has fast become a staple – easy and delicious, and those types of meals are always going to win big here. Continue reading →

Hands-on Fun

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As promised…our last Romanian recipe. Then we have a few special celebrations before we’re off to our new international pick. This next selection will be courtesy of Miss A which is always exciting. We just never know where she’ll take us! Mike and I usually talk about our options, so those picks aren’t really a surprise. We can bet on Mr. N going for Asia, but Miss A…she’s taken us to Brazil, Uzbekistan, Portugal and Greenland. It’s literally all over the map. Continue reading →

Best Laid Plans

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We had another Romanian recipe planned for today. Only it didn’t turn out very well. In fact, it didn’t turn out at all. You know how that goes sometimes, you have everything all laid out – your plans for the day, the recipe, the ingredients and then somehow time sneaks up on you, you’re in a rush, the recipe goes completely haywire and all you have are some prep pictures and no finished result. This is when I take a deep breath and am reminded of that old saying, “The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray.”

But that’s life isn’t it…it’s gunna throw stuff at us. It’s full of uncertainty, and sometimes it’s okay to just throw your hands-up and move on. Now even though we pushed this recipe aside for today, we do plan on trying it again. You could say that it’s become a personal challenge of sorts. I will figure this one out! Until then, we thought we’d share this simple Watermelon-Ginger Salad that we whipped up to go with Mr. N’s birthday meal a few weeks ago. It’s simple, it’s fresh, is a great summer side, and most importantly it’s no fail! Continue reading →

One for the Money, Two for the Show

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As promised tonight’s introduction to Romanian cuisine is complete with a bonus recipe. Yep, this is a twofer. Now that summer is here we’re eating lighter and enjoying the outdoors quite a bit more. That means there’s less time to spend holed up in the kitchen. All that said, you’re probably wondering why then, we have two recipes. Well…they are both appetizers and absolutely easy.

Both Beth from Yes Folks, I Run Like a Girl and Kate from Minestrone Soup both suggested eggplant and eggplant salads as part of our tour of Romania. So our first recipe is just that – a Romanian Eggplant Salad. While searching for eggplant recipes we also came across a recipe for Fasole Batuta, or a Romanian Bean Dip. The bean dip recipe is adapted from Lake Magazine which also had this little tidbit of information: It is estimated that there are more than one million Romanians living in America, and of this group 17 percent live in Illinois and Michigan. In metro Chicago alone there are about 100,000 Romanians. I had no idea! That was kind of a fun little fact to learn about our area.  Continue reading →

Scallops and Drunken Chestnuts

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Yesterday was our epic Chopped Challenge for Mike’s birthday celebration and our New Year’s Day fun. The baskets of ingredients were provided by members of our blog family and put up to vote by our readers. We completed three rounds including an appetizer, main course and dessert recipe. It was a crazy day of cooking, spills, dirty dishes, laughter, a bit of competitive jabbing and absolute fun. Thanks for all of those that participated and followed along. We hope you had some fun too. 🙂

Now as promised here are the first recipes from the event. We’re going to kick off with the appetizer dishes. We used the ingredients suggested by Linda at Savoring Every Bite (who has some fantastic recipes – we’ve tried several in fact – not to mention amazing party planning/hosting skills) which included Chestnuts, Brandy, Polenta and Scallops. The measurements provided in the recipes are approximated as we didn’t do too much calculating yesterday. We mostly went on gut feel and tossed in what we thought worked.  Continue reading →