Tag Archives: Appetizer

Tuesday Tips!

GrazieWe enjoy eating earlier these days so when we decide to eat out we try different Happy Hours around the area. Some Happy Hours are happier than others.  Last Friday we re-visited an old favorite from a few years ago and were very pleased. All of these dishes were half priced and each selection was plenty for the three of us to enjoy. Yes, three, as our daughter Katie is still with us while our Son-in-law Andrew is serving in Afghanistan. There were three meatballs on that plate before I took the photo. We were pleased with the selections that Grazie in Canyon Park offered.

P1040819This Bruschetta appetizer was great with the added ricotta and herb spread and olive tapenade. I’ll be trying to duplicate it and will post it on the Mennonite Girls Can Cook webpage. I’m thinking it will be a great dish for Super Bowl Sunday.

Speaking of Andrew if you are a praying friend of mine could you please pray that Andrew’s time in Afghanistan will not be extended? We all would appreciate it here at this old house. Originally he would be returning before April. Now we are praying he’ll be home before May.

Monday was an amazingly non-productive day at his old house. I did manage to make dinner. Can I have some applause please? Thank you. I hear our Midwest and Eastern friends will be experiencing some more nasty winter weather this week. Stay safe please! All we have in the forecast here is rain…

A is for Appetizers…

I really enjoy appetizers. It’s nice to have a variety of taste bites when dining. When we go out to dinner we sometimes eat appetizers instead of a big plate of food. If we are out during Happy Hour it’s tempting to eat too many appetizers when they are half priced. We like to find restaurants with Happy Hour foods that are not all fried food. We have found many good spots with great options. Do you eat appetizers instead of main dishes when you go out?

Teacher Jenny is starting up Alphabe-Thursday this week again and we are at the beginning with the letter A. This would be a good time for you to join in if you want. Thank you Teacher Jenny!

Foodie Friday ~ Artichoke

Spring Fling is the Foodie Friday Theme this week. Everyone at my house loves artichokes and for Foodie Friday I’m going to share the fast easy way we choose to enjoy this Springy looking vegetable! Gollum at Designs by Gollum is the hostess of this weekly Blog Food Event.

 

First find nice firm artichokes. Cut the stem off so you have a flat base. Cut the top say up to 1/2 to 1 inch straight across. Snip each leaf at the top to get rid of the sharp prickly part. Rinse really well and lay upside down with some of the liquid in a microwavable dish. Cover the dish and microwave on high for approx. 5 minutes for one. I did these for 10 minutes for the two and they were perfect.

 

Put the artichoke on any plate (be careful it will be very hot) Aren’t these artichoke plates Springy looking that I got from Goodwill for cheap?!  Next choose your dip of choice. Dear likes mayonnaise, I like Ranch Dressing, the rest of my family likes Italian dressing. Put a little  on the plate in the nifty section made just for it. Peel off one leaf at a time and dip the end that was most connected then scrap off the goodness with your teeth. (I love that soft focus you can fix photos with cuz now you can’t see all my wrinkles on this close up of me with the leaf) As you get farther into the center the leaves are more delicate and you can scrap off more goodness to eat, or even eat the whole leaf except for there always seems to be a little prickly part you need to avoid. Now here’s why they call it a Artichoke (maybe)…

 

See that fuzzy feathery part of the choke. This is the part you need to discard because you will probably choke on it. We use a spoon to scrape off all the fuzziness to get to the very best part the heart of the artichoke, you’ll need to apply a little pressure to remove the fuzzies from the heart but be careful not to scrape away the heart. After scrapping off the fuzz, sometimes I even rinse this part off to make sure I got rid of all the fuzzies, yep I’m a little paranoid that way. Now you can eat the heart and it’s solid artichoke yumminess. Make sure you add a little more dip if you got low in the eating process at this point :0)  This is a fun appetizer that we always enjoy at our house!

Now to see more Foodie Posts visit Gollum at Designs by Gollum!

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

St. Patty’s Appetizer Setting ~

Yippee! It’s time to set and see some tablesettings from around the Blogisphere. Susan at Between Naps on the Porch is our hostess for this weekly event. If you ever have a table setting you want to share you can join in, too. Click on the image above to get to Susan’s blog where you can see more tablescapes.

 

My tablescape today is actually an ottoman scape. It’s St. Patty’s Day appetizer setting for two. I got these great artichoke plates at Goodwill a couple weeks ago for 99 cents each!

 

We’re going a little Irish here so there’s some good Jameson Whiskey for the gentleman of the house and a nice Irish Guinness for the lady of the house.

 

I think I’ll have to play my Cd by the Chieftains while we enjoy our artichoke appetizers.

 

 

I will be making the traditional Corn Beef and Cabbage with potatoes next Tuesday but I wanted to share a little Irish with you for Tablescape Thursday. Enjoy…

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage unless I pay them a lot of money. I’m slowly cleaning up many posts from this time period and deleting their ugly grey and black boxes with a ransom request. Such a time consuming bother.