My lovely friend Meredith (of Zephaniah Wine) made this amazing black bean and corn salad/dip thing one weekend, and I’ve been obsessed with it ever since. It’s super-easy to make, and ridiculously good. Sure, it’s all veggies, with nary a meat or cheese in sight, but I stand by its deliciousness enough to confidently say that you can bring it to a Super Bowl party this weekend and you won’t get thrown out of the building.

Generally canned vegetables freak me out, but it’s winter, so good corn on the cob is going to be hard to come by. Plus, frozen corn really won’t work for this unless you want to put a lot more time in it that is required. This dip should be served room temperature or cold, so you’d have to cook the corn and cool it before you’re ready to put it in — and that’s just crazy talk.

I also didn’t get the recipe from Meredith, I basically recreated it from the dreams I had about this dip every night since she made it. I asked her later, and it turns out I got pretty close. So without further ado. …

Black Bean Corn Salad/Dip

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Ingredients:

• 1 can black beans (I use the reduced sodium kind)
• 1 can corn (I use the kind without salt. There’s certainly a theme here)
• 1 large avocado
• 2 Roma tomatoes
• 1/2 red onion
• 1/2 lime
• 1/4 cup fresh cilantro (don’t pack it down or anything ridiculous like that — you don’t need a ton.)
• 2 tbs malt vinegar
• salt and pepper to taste

The reason I love this recipe so much is because it’s ridiculously quick and easy. Drain the black beans and the corn and  put them in a large salad bowl. Chop up the avocado and the tomatoes and add them to the bowl. I actually only used 1/4 of the onion because I don’t really like them. I also chopped them as finely as I could, but that’s really dependent on your own personal onion groove.

At this point, you have the base of the dip in place:

Now you’re just bringing it all together. Squeeze your 1/2 lime into the bowl, add the cilantro and the vinegar. You’ll probably have to play around with the vinegar and salt and pepper to get it to the exact taste you want. It also serves as a nice excuse to eat a bunch of it before you relinquish it to your guests. Stir it all up, and you’re ready to go!

Like Nathan Fillion’s bean dip, you’re going to need a sturdy chip for this bad boy. Mission Rounds are good, as are the Archer Farms blue corn tortilla chips that I grabbed from Target.

I love Twitter, because you never know what news you’ll learn, or what celebrity is having a meltdown, or how many people should go to bed instead of being on Twitter. Or, in the case of Nathan Fillion, a sweet vegetarian bean dip recipe.

For you food pleasure, I have gone through his string of tweets and recreated the recipe below:

• Layer 1: Large can of fat-free vegetarian refried beans.

• Layer 2: Mix taco seasoning into low fat sour cream and spread over beans.

• Layer 3: 4 large diced tomatoes (use your judgment for adequate coverage).

• Layer 4: Guacamole. (I use avocados mixed with Herdez mild salsa). Tomatoes will anchor the sour cream layer.

• Layer 5: 1 cute little can of diced green chilies. Suggest wee flinging through fingers for even spreaddage.

I’m not a giant pepper fan, so I just used a can of diced tomatoes with green chiles, so this is part of my tomato layer.

• Layer 6: 1 cute little can of black olives. Same technique for spreaddage.

I made this for a family dinner, and my sister hates olives, do I only did half.

• Layer 7: shredded Mexican cheese mix. Or to taste. I use a whole bag.

This is a pretty straightforward 7-layer dip recipe, so just grab a casserole dish and start layering. Fillion does, however, offer a few tips: “[Use] a strong chip like Mission Rounds. Dip is thick- will destroy lesser chips. Maybe stock up on Beano, too.”

He also tweeted that he wants pictures and to hear how it goes, and now I can officially report back that it was a major hit. I usually hate refried beans, but this went really well. Plus, I made my own taco seasoning which gave it an extra kick.

With the Super Bowl coming up, it’s a great vegetarian option for any parties you may be hosting or attending. Plus, Nathan Fillion is hot and charming, and that’s bound to rub off on you, right? I’m pretty sure that’s how that works.

If I do get lazy, I’ll just bring a cheese platter or an easy dip (or 22) and be done with it, but you’ve got to be tempted by some of these one-bite appetizers. Some are deceivingly easy to make and are guaranteed to impress … so stop emulating me and put in a little bit of effort.

Bob’s prosciutto-wrapped dates are yummy and a cinch to make. I like to make these with figs instead of dates for a change of pace. You could also wrap melon or asparagus.

On to bacon … wrap it around scallops, apricots, water chestnuts, shrimp, dates stuffed with cream cheese and chorizo, or mushrooms brushed with BBQ sauce.

I made these cherry tomatoes stuffed with marinated feta a while back … so delicious and simple. At our family’s Christmas Eve celebration, someone made cherry tomatoes stuffed with fresh mozzarella and a basil leaf, all wrapped in prosciutto and sealed with a toothpick. Pretty, simple and delicious.

You could possibly love the prosciutto filled with happiness as much as I did — so make them! — which is as much as I adore the name of the recipe. How could anything with a name that cute not be tasty?

Portobella mushrooms stuffed with crab and mozzarella … OK, I’m in.

These salmon canapes sound so good to me … and they are carb-less, since the “cracker” part of a traditional canape is replace with a slice of daikon radish. I always think of the one-bites as being a bit more labor intensive to prepare, but these couldn’t be easier.

In the spirit of the daikon radish above, this recipe uses cucumber cups, stuffed with cheese and topped with smoked salmon or a number of other choices. They are so, so pretty!

Check it out — apple slices with goat cheese and pistachios. Easy!

These mini brie and arugula sandwiches sound delicious, but they don’t look very impressive. The same ingredients on top of a pretty cracker or a slice of baguette would be attractive and delicious.

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If you’re not bringing a dessert tray everywhere you go this season, then maybe you’re the designated appetizer bringer. Sometimes, it’s really fun to make one-bite appetizers that impress — and a post on those will follow. This time of year, I admit that I get lazy and opt for a dip.

I love a traditional hummus (I’ve even got my perfect recipe for hummus, though I suspect I add more lemon now than I did when I wrote that recipe) but this recipe for Moroccan bean dip caught my eye. It’s chick peas and yogurt, with spices and seasonings (like cumin) that sound scrumptious to me.

Back to hummus for a moment — if it’s too passe for you, try dressing it up with these ideas for hummus to impress, or make my favorite recipe for black bean hummus.

It doesn’t get a lot easier than this herbed goat cheese dip — fresh herbs and sun-dried tomatoes stirred into goat chevre … that’s it.

Sometimes, I don’t want a brown rice cracker or vegetables as my dipper … I crave a corn chip. That’s how I discovered Nigella Lawson’s red kidney bean dip, which I love and make often. I’ve yet to make this chipotle black bean dip, but they even give a recipe for your own (healthier!) corn chips as an accompaniment. It’s on my list for sure.

Or if you want to scoop up some dip with potato chips, try this caramelized onion dip (thank you, Heidi Swanson) that my brother made this weekend. The amount of dairy in it nearly sent me to the hospital, but it was so delicious. Why would anyone use a packet of onion soup mix when this four-ingredient recipe tastes so much better?

The layered Mexican dip has been done to death (um … ’cause it’s delicious), so in the interest of a new twist on a classic, this eight-layer Mediterranean dip will shake things up. Hummus, artichoke hearts, Kalamata olives, yogurt, spinach, feta, roasted red peppers and green onions … yes, I’m drooling just a little.

Sweet pea guacamole is not a healthy substitute for the gift from the gods that is an avocado guacamole, as some may try to convince you. It is a different dip altogether, but it is addictingly delicious and you’ll not want to cease scooping this into your mouth.

White beans can become anything — a white bean roasted red pepper dip, a white bean dip with garlic and fresh herbs, even six easier than sin white bean dips, including pesto white bean dip and Caesar white bean dip. Please tell me a can of white beans (or two … or seven) is a staple in your pantry.

Black-eyed peas aren’t a common dip ingredient, which is why this black-eyed pea pate with pickled onions caught my eye. It’s suggested that you serve it on flatbreads, but I’d present it as a dip with crackers and veggie rounds and let my guests have at it.

I love this mayo-free recipe for shrimp dip — Neufchatel cheese, plain yogurt, scallions and a few other easy ingredients make the dip appealing to mayophobes like me.

If you didn’t find a recipe here, well, you’ve got a problem … but you could always check these nineteen easy and festive appetizer ideas to secure your position in the dip-obsessed fan club. I’m a charter member.

Pureeing some sort of legume and throwing in delicious stuff is my idea of a perfect dip. It’s easy, healthy, super-tasty and I love dreaming up different ways of scooping it up: corn chips, brown rice crackers, cucumber and carrot sticks or rounds, baguette, polenta … you get the point.

But back to the easy. I’m going to go so far as to say bean dip goes beyond easy, into the territory of sheer laziness. I love knowing that I can make a spur-of-the-moment dip from ingredients in my pantry and refrigerator and barely lift a finger. Pushing the button on a food processor? Lazy. Delightfully lazy.

C’mon. Be lazy, lazier than me even. If you have a 15-ounce can of white beans, open it, rinse and drain the beans and follow the directions below to make a dip so simple you’ll feel guilty. But only for a moment.

Pesto White Bean Dip
Puree beans and add 1-2 tablespoons store-bought pesto (or to taste). Add equal amounts of olive oil and lemon juice until you get the consistency you like. You’ll need a few tablespoons of each to get the consistency I like. Try this dip with breadsticks or polenta rounds.

White Bean Dip with Fresh Herbs
Puree beans with 1 teaspoon of Better Than Bouillon‘s vegetable broth concentrate. Add equal parts lemon juice and olive oil until your favorite consistency is attained. Pulse in a handful or two of your favorite fresh herbs — I like basil, sage, rosemary, flat-leaf parsley, chives, thyme…. I love serving this one with simple crispy rice crackers or flatbread.

Caesar White Bean Dip
Puree beans with 1 teaspoon anchovy paste, 1-2 cloves garlic, 1 teaspoon stone-ground mustard and 1/2 cup grated parmesan or pecorino romano cheese. Add equal parts lemon juice and olive oil until you reach your desired consistency. This one’s great served with baguette or lettuce cups.

Only slightly more challenging (which means you can’t be comatose and make them, but sleepwalking is fine) are some of my past white bean dip recipes:

• White bean dip with sun-dried tomato and roasted garlic
• Roasted red pepper white bean dip
• Easy white bean dip with garlic and fresh herbs

Is it wrong to be tired of black bean dip and hummus? OK, I guess I really love hummus, but I just didn’t feel like making it when I knew I’d be entertaining this weekend. What can I say — I longed for a different legume.

I wasn’t sure exactly what I’d do with a kidney bean dip, so it was Nigella Lawson to the rescue, and boy did she win the medal of honor for most heroic dip save of May 2010. Her red kidney bean dip was exactly what I was looking for — not Middle Eastern, not Italian and not Mexican, this dip had a personality all its own.

And not only was the taste perfect, but the recipe was perfection in and of itself. I didn’t change a thing (which never happens) and I made a couple of batches at different times and they both came out divine. I was tempted to take a shortcut and just use lime juice and skip the zest — you really, really don’t want to do that. The zest adds such a perfect finish to the dip, it’s worth the trip to the store to buy real limes.

The thing is, it’s a really simple recipe with very few ingredients. I don’t admit this often, but this time, it’s all about technique. Most dips, I just chuck everything into the food processor, blend and serve. Instead, this recipe has you cook the onions, garlic and eventually add the beans and spices as well. The cooked onions add a hint of sweetness, when coupled with the cinnamon and the lime juice almost trick you into thinking you added sugar or the like.

The one thing her recipe doesn’t specify is what to serve it with, but I chose organic yellow and blue corn chips and scored. Not sure that crackers, veggies or bread would make the perfect pair that this dip and corn chips did. The salty corn chips play off the pseudo-sweetness of the dip and you wouldn’t want it any other way.

It was a hit with both crowds that I served it to, and the only reason I had to make the second batch was because I couldn’t keep the husband and child out of it to save it for the next day. When a five-year-old emphatically proclaims, “This is so delicious!” then you know you’ve got a good thing going.

Thanks Nigella, for a simple, innovative dip that wasn’t made with chick peas or black beans.

It’s Easter Sunday, and we just opened a giant box of chocolaty goodies that Luke’s parents sent us. Plus, my step-mother made Easter baskets, so we’re up to our ears in various forms of candy. However, there were a few non-sugary items that we received today, one of which is an Easter bunny deviled egg holder. Since it says “Happy Easter” on it, I figured that making deviled eggs would be a good way to go this afternoon.

I love deviled eggs because even if you don’t cook, and even if you’ve never even seen a recipe for deviled eggs in your life, you can still make them. It’s probably one of the most intuitive recipes out there, but with any simple recipe, the opportunity for variations are endless (that’s what makes them so great).

The basic recipe just involves mixing hard-boiled egg yolks with mayonnaise and mustard, and sprinkling a little paprika on top if you’re feeling fancy. You can add Tabasco sauce, truffle oil, shallots, or if you’re Deb, you can even replace the mayo with yogurt.  My recipe is pretty standard, but I have a few tricks: Less mayo, more mustard; dill pickles; and using a Ziploc bag with the corner cut off as a makeshift pastry bag instead of spooning in the filling.

So what’s your favorite deviled egg recipe? Do you add anchovy paste? Do you forgo them completely? I want to hear your variations.

This weekend my family got together to celebrate my father’s birthday. I come from a family of cooks and as my contribution to the meal, I brought a couple of appetizers. I wanted to do something a little special and my mind went right to stuffed, wrapped dates. After skimming around the internet looking for recipes, I decided to take some bits and pieces from each one and make my own.

Some recipes choose to wrap the dates in bacon, other opt for prosciutto. I chose the latter, but I can certainly understand why bacon is a popular option. Dates tend to be on the large side and bacon is a bit more substantial than the more delicate prosciutto. Tossing them in the oven makes the bacon nice and crispy too. I left my dates uncooked. Of course, nothing is stopping you from baking the prosciutto wrapped dates, either.

There are also many different cheeses that are used for stuffing: ricotta, cream cheese, and blue cheese are popular options. I went with goat cheese, one of my favorites. In order to add some crunch, I also added some slivered almonds.

This was a popular and pretty easy appetizer, but it was not cheap. Nice prosciutto always costs a little more, even when not used in large quantities. Ditto for the dried dates. This certainly isn’t the type of appetizer that you would bring to every party you’re invited to, but for an appreciative and discerning crowd, I think it’s well worth the cost.

Prosciutto Wrapped Dates

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Ingredients:

• 18 dried Medjool dates
• 9 pieces of thinly sliced prosciutto
• 1 log of goat cheese
• slivered almonds

If the dates are not pitted, slice them down the middle and remove the pit. Slice each piece of prosciutto in half, lengthwise. Open each date and place approximately a teaspoon of goat cheese inside (the size of the date will really dictate how much cheese will fit). Add four to five slivered almonds to the cheese and close the date. Wrap the date in prosciutto and spear with a toothpick. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Don’t you just love those days when you’re trying to get all of the little this-and-thats out of your refrigerator and into a meal before it all goes south? Really, you hate that, you say? While I’ll admit that it can be annoying trying to be creative all of the time, most often I welcome the challenge to make a meal out of seemingly unrelated leftovers.

This week, I had some crab meat left over from making Brian Boitano’s crab and avocado crostini this weekend (in a nutshell, disappointing even after I doctored the heck out of it …. I wanted more flavor) and some broccoli florets that needed to be cooked up, pronto. I thought about a pasta, but I have actually never made crab cakes before and I just felt like trying. I didn’t have to share my foibles with you if I bombed, right?

Good news — I didn’t bomb, and there was only one call to my dad for advice on how moist they should be. He told me that the less a crab cake stays together, the higher quality it is. Strange advice, but I interpreted that to mean not too much breading and enough moistness so it’s not dry. The advice I did ignore was to add mayonnaise and that no matter what I did it would taste like shit because I used hoisin sauce and gave it an Asian flair. The dadster, he’s fond of traditional crab cakes. And yes, he really did use the word “shit.”

Everyone who actually tasted them loved them, so Steve Degon’s not always right.

Hoisin Crab Cakes

Ingredients:

• 8 ounces crab meat
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped shallot
• 1/4 cup finely chopped red bell pepper
• 1 tablespoon hoisin sauce
• 1 tablespoon tamari or soy sauce
• 1/4 cup bread crumbs + more to coat
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 egg, beaten

Gently mix all ingredients together thoroughly. Unlike with meatloaf, it’s not unpleasant using your hands for this. Form into 4 crab cakes and refrigerate for a short time until they firm up slightly. Saute over medium heat, about 3-4 minutes on each side or until they are browned and firm.

Variation: coat the crab cakes in breadcrumbs before refrigerating. I did half and half, because my dad said it wasn’t necessary but I couldn’t help thinking it would be crunchy goodness. The verdict? We liked the breading on the outside and that’s how we’d make them all the next time.

I served these with some stir-fried veggies: broccoli, red pepper, onion and a can of baby corn that the five-year-old convinced me to buy this week at the super market. Sometimes, he just knows….

After browning the vegetables, I deglazed the wok with white wine (maybe a 1/2 cup or so) and added hoisin sauce and tamari, one turn of the pan each, to the mix. After heating through, they made the perfect accompaniment to the crab cakes, and I got to use up my leftover broccoli.

The moral of the story is to listen to your dad’s advice … and your gut instinct. The combination of the two will make the perfect dish for your tastes.

Bob might be obsessed with Whole Foods Market, but I’m starting to think I’m developing a little obsession myself. I’ve really been making a lot of dips, and the more I make, the more I dig ‘em. They are the perfect munchy appetizer for entertaining, a great way to get your kid to eat his veggies and a yummy alternative to a boring sandwich for lunch. I admit it: I’m officially dip-obsessed.

So when we invited my parents to dinner last weekend, the first thing that sprang to mind as an appetizer was — you guessed it! — dip. Rather than make my go-to perfect hummus recipe or the white bean dip I created for Christmas Eve, my taste buds led me to something with roasted red peppers.

After a little digging around in the fridge and the pantry, I managed to wrangle up a dip that even won compliments from dear ol’ Dad, which is not an easy feat. Even he couldn’t resist the combination of white beans, roasted red peppers, garlic, capers, fresh basil, miso and lemon juice.

Roasted Red Pepper and White Bean Dip

Ingredients:

• 15-ounce can white beans, rinsed and drained
• 6 ounces roasted red peppers, drained
• 1 clove garlic
• 2 teaspoons miso (I used Hearty Brown Rice Miso)
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon capers
• 1/3 cup fresh basil leaves
• lots of freshly ground black pepper

Add first five ingredients to your food processor and blend until smooth. Add capers, basil and black pepper and pulse until coarsely blended. Serve with crostini, pita chips, brown rice crackers or your favorite vehicle for dip.

If I’m dip-obsessed, does that make me dippy? Probably I was that long ago….

Join Debbie as she raves about whole foods, rants about chemicals and generally celebrates cooking and eating with fresh, local, nutritious foods. And sometimes she might get a little feisty….

Maybe you didn’t quite make a New Year’s resolution out of it like Jeff did, but it’s there, in the back of your mind: “I’m going to start eating healthier and consume less calories.” One way to reach that goal would be to eat healthier snacks.

I feel compelled to confess to you that I as type this, I’m eating chocolate chips and pretzels. That’s because I had a freakishly healthy dinner of salmon, buttercup squash and broccoli. I’m convinced that my body — anyone’s body — needs a certain amount of calories to subsist happily (and that’s more than programs like Lose It! tell you to eat), and so I suggest eating healthy snacks often. Because if you don’t, you may very well binge on chocolate chips and pretzels.

Did you ever think about buying the pre-packaged 100-calorie snacks? Honestly, I’ve been tempted and I’m actually glad that wheat makes me feel crummy, or I would have fallen for the ease of a handy little snack with little to no nutritional value. They may be low-calorie and even low-fat, but that’s about it and that’s just not me.

I decided to measure out the calories of some of my favorite snacks, and I was surprised at how easy it is to make your own 100-calorie snacks.

The 100-Calorie Healthy Snacks

• 7 baby carrots (five calories each)
• 2 tsp. all-natural almond butter or peanut butter (about 66 calories)

• 1/2 c. strawberries (25 calories)
• 1/2 c. plain whole milk yogurt (75 calories)

• small fruit salad
• 1 TB slivered almonds (33 calories)

• 2 TB hummus (50 calories)
• 5 baby carrots
• as many cucumber and celery sticks as you’d like

• 1 medium apple (75 calories)
• 1 TB cheese chunks or slices (25 calories)

• 1/2 medium banana (55 calories)
• 1-2 TB shredded coconut (for dipping!) (30 calories)

• 1 TB grain-sweetened chocolate chips (35 calories)
• 10 spelt pretzels (60 calories)

Hey, how’d that snack get in there? Well, I guess it’s semi-healthy.

• 1 rice cake (35 calories)
• 2 tsp. almond butter

• nearly unlimited veggies sticks if they are green (cucumbers, peppers, celery)
• 1 TB Goddess dressing for dipping (basically Italian dressing with lemon and tahini)

I used Calorie Count to get the approximate amount of calories for these foods when I didn’t have a package label to check. Don’t forget to package these snacks in reusable containers instead of disposable plastic bags. You’ve now saved some money, saved the environment, and saved yourself a larger waistline. Now that’s worth not buying those nutritionless pre-packaged jobs, wouldn’t you say?

If you share your 100-calorie snacks with us, we’ll have more snacks to create ourselves, so add your faves to the comments.

Join Debbie as she raves about whole foods, rants about chemicals and generally celebrates cooking and eating with fresh, local, nutritious foods. And sometimes she might get a little feisty….

The first thing you’re probably thinking is, “Avocados are so ridiculously delicious — why would anyone make a guacamole without them?” That’s what I thought before I first tried sweet pea guacamole, many years ago. Let me say right up front here that sweet pea guacamole is not a substitute for avocado guacamole, it’s a completely different dip but very yummy in its own right.

Don’t get me started on these do-gooders who think they are making healthier recipes for us when all they’re doing is taking the good fat out of our diets along with the taste. There’s nothing wrong with saturated fats from whole foods — avocados, coconuts and their oil, all the “taboo” foods are fine to eat, and in fact offer your body a great many benefits. So make the sweet pea guacamole because you want the taste of it, not because you fear avocados. That’s just silly.

What’s not silly is that this weekend, the little recipe that saved my appetizer was, in fact, a recipe for sweet pea guacamole. I have these avocados that refuse to ripen, and a bag of frozen peas are infinitely less stubborn than unripe avocados, so I went with it.

Using this recipe for sweet pea guacamole as a base, I altered it more to suit my tastes (since I actually have taste buds) and added more, well, tasty things. Remember, make the sweet pea guacamole because you want a different taste … or because your avocados won’t ripen.

Sweet Pea Guacamole

Ingredients:

• 1-2 cloves garlic
• 1 pound bag of frozen peas, defrosted
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice or 1 tablespoon lemon juice + 1 tablespoon lime juice
• 2 tablespoons fire roasted chile peppers (though I bet I could have used the whole can … it was small and the dip wasn’t spicy)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/2 teaspoon to 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 cup packed fresh cilantro
• 1/4 cup finely chopped onion (your choice)
• 1 tomato, chopped
• lots of freshly ground black pepper

Puree the peas, garlic, chiles, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, pepper and cumin until smooth. Pulse in the cilantro, onion and tomato. Taste and increase seasonings to your liking.

Just a few notes. Because the peas are so sweet, you probably want lemon juice as opposed to lime; it’ll give your dip a little more kick. But try it out and see what works for you. You can add raw jalepenos for more spice and always more garlic and cumin. This guacamole was perfect served with thick, organic, restaurant-style yellow corn chips.

Is there anyone who doesn’t love cheese? OK, I’m not talking to you vegans, unless you count that fake soy cheese as remotely edible. But the rest of us love cheese. You don’t know how happy I was when I got pregnant and my lactose intolerance mysteriously disappeared. Owen’s birthday marked a day much more special than just becoming a mom — I could eat cheese again!

Many of us entertain to celebrate the New Year, and I’ve already given you nineteen ideas for easy and festive appetizers you can prepare. Now, the CliqueClack Food staff has banded together to give you some of our favorite cheese platters. After all, everyone should have a little Clique in their New Year.

Bob says, “I really like serving jelly with cheese. In particular there is a hot pepper cranberry jelly that is amazing with both brie (or St. Andre, another favorite) and extremely sharp cheddar. I also like to serve a selection of hard cheeses (Gruyere, Manchego, etc) with some paté.”

Keith loves meat with cheese too, like assorted hard cheeses (some spicy!) with cured meats, like salami, gourmet sausages and prosciutto.

Cate says in Portugal, where she lives, “people like to serve cheese with plain cakes, like an un-iced pound cake — sounds really weird but it’s totally delicious. It’s especially good with super-soft buttery cheeses. It’s that sweet/salty combination that makes it work, like Bob’s cheese and jelly or that feta with peppered honey. Other than that they pretty much just do a basic antipasto platter — cubes of cheese, slices or chunks of prosciutto, olives, fresh crusty bread, and lots of wine!”

Back to the jelly with cheese: my brother has been serving brie with apple butter to great raves, and two favorites of mine are Manchego with fig jam and Gouda with roasted onion and garlic jam.

Kona says, “I like to have an assortment of hard and soft cheeses with fruit, like grapes and Granny Smith apples. Blue cheese and granny smiths are great together. I also always make sure to have goat cheese and Dubliner on hand.”

Since Owen and I don’t eat wheat, we’ll use rice crackers, but like Kona, fruit works best. Here are some of my favorite combinations:

• figs and feta
• Gala apples and gouda
• red grapes and gorgonzola
• strawberries with goat cheese

Kelly, the new kid on the block here at CliqueClack, loves to serve Alouette garlic and herb spread with crackers. Her family also loves Cabot extra sharp cheddar, and they will accept no substitute.

Jen‘s got some cheese and bread pairings for us (but why would we expect anything different from the genius behind the “Let’s Get Baked” column): “We like to pair Camembert with a good crusty Italian bread, sliced pears, and OLIVES!  But gorgonzola melted onto bread slices under the broiler is always a great favorite, especially paired with a nice Shiraz.”

A few other super combinations that are easy to put together for guests:

• Manchego, Marcona almonds and raw honey (you could also do a fried goat cheese with this combo)
• Goat cheese, olives and roasted red pepper
• fresh mozzarella with sun-dried tomato tapenade

Even Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa herself, got together with us to share some of her cheese platter ideas. OK, not really, but the link is out there for the world to see and I had you there for a minute, didn’t I?

If you’re serving wine with your cheese appetizers, we’ve discovered several rosé Cote du Rhones that go amazingly well with cheese. You also can’t miss with a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.

There are no rules for the cheese platter, but we hope that some of our favorites will make your New Year’s gathering even more special. Happy New Year from CliqueClack Food, and be sure to share your favorite combinations in the comments!

How will you be ringing in the New Year? If you’re at home with a young one, like Keith and I, you’ll probably be hoping for an early kid bedtime so you can enjoy your rack of lamb in peace, but you definitely won’t be partying. That doesn’t have to keep you from enjoying appetizers that practically scream, “Best. Party. Ever.”

Even if you’re not saddled with child, these appetizers will appeal and make your party (or your bring-along) a huge gastronomical hit.

I’ve recently made four dips that are perfect for partying: tahini miso dip goes well with snap peas or sesame crackers, and white bean dip with sun-dried tomato and roasted garlic is magical with crostini laced with pecorino romano and extra virgin olive oil. Alton Brown’s olive tapenade and this sun-dried tomato tapenade are spectacular with just about anything edible.

My cousin’s wife makes a warm goat cheese in tomato sauce dip that is easy and crowd-pleasing. To this basic recipe, I’d add a bunch of fresh basil, chiffonade style and probably even some Kalamata olives.

Some of Bob’s favorite Food Network recipes are appetizers, like Bobby Flay’s flatbread with white bean hummus and Alton Brown’s spinach artichoke dip. One spinach artichoke dip you don’t want to make is Food Network’s lightened up version; a great idea but a flavor failure.

Now I’m thinking of my perfect hummus recipe, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with paprika. It’s perfect for serving just like that, with pita triangles, or using on bruschetta with sun-dried tomatoes and Kalamata olives, and maybe a fresh basil leaf, for a one-bite appetizer.

Speaking of one-bite or individual serving sized appetizers, I like these mini-quiches in prosciutto cups. This recipe is so ridiculously easy and so deliciously gourmet that it’s hard not to want to make them every night of the week.

If that’s too complicated for you, try wrapping dates or figs or asparagus in prosciutto with a little blue cheese sprinkled in. Bake until melty goodness is achieved and you’ve got yourself an appetizer.

You can even get fancy with some store-bought pesto, or your own homemade pesto. Spread eggplant rounds with pesto and top with a sun-dried tomato and slice of fresh mozzarella. Bake as above … you know, until melty goodness is achieved. Try the same on sliced baguette with roasted red peppers and goat cheese, or any combination that pleases you.

Don’t rule out the world’s easiest sushi rolls; I don’t know many people who wouldn’t pop those delightful little seaweed-wrapped nuggets like candy. We like avocado with just about anything stuffed inside, and you might be better off using cooked ingredients when serving a crowd. We can’t all claim to have friends with good taste.

Here’s an easy one that our guests brought to our house the other night: simple fried polenta sticks dipped in marinara sauce, courtesy of Giada De Laurentiis. Fun and appealing to just about everyone. Come to think of it, the fried polenta would be amazing with the sun-dried tomato tapenade I mentioned above.

What are your favorite appetizer ideas? Have you tried any of the above?

Every Christmas Eve, my family throws a giant party with all of the aunts, uncles and cousins. Everyone brings an appetizer or dessert and we munch and mingle the night away. In the past we’ve brought our butternut squash sage pizza, chicken wings, and a variety of dips and one-bite appetizers.

One thing I always try to bring is something I know Owen can eat, since he’s got lots of food allergies. And in fine five-year-old form, he’ll refuse to eat anything at a party that can’t be scooped up easily, grabbed and eaten on the run. If there’s a fork involved, all bets are off.

A few weeks ago, I was playing with a white bean dip recipe which we ended up using inside quesadillas. Yesterday, I stepped it up a bit and perfected it and that’s what I’m bringing tonight, along with these recipes for Alton Brown’s olive tapenade and sun-dried tomato tapenade (can’t stop eating this one … hope it makes it to the party!). They go so well together and when it’s a bigger gathering, I feel cheesy just bringing a little bowl of dip, so classing it up and presenting it as a “dip trio” made me feel better about myself.

White Bean Dip with Sun-Dried Tomatoes and Roasted Garlic

Ingredients:

• 15-ounce can white beans, rinsed and drained
• 2-3 large cloves of garlic (or more!)
• 2-3 tablespoons lemon juice, depending on how lemony you like it
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 6 sun-dried tomatoes, reconstituted in hot water, then drained
• 1/4 cup fresh basil leaves
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• pinch sea salt
• freshly ground black pepper to taste

To roast the garlic: Cut the tops of the garlic cloves off, but leave them in their skins. Drizzle with a little olive oil and wrap loosely in foil. Cook at 400 degrees convection roast (or 425 normal) for about 30 minutes.

Puree beans and sun dried tomatoes until smooth, adding lemon juice and olive oil until smooth and of desired consistency. Adjust, then add the garlic and puree again.

Add all other ingredients and pulse until just blended. If you blend too long, the basil will become pureed and make the dip an ugly color, so please pulse. Serve with baguette rounds drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with grated cheese (we used pecorino romano) and baked at 400 degrees for about 5-7 minutes. Rice crackers and pita chips are also perfect with these three dips.

What would you do if you were expected at a party with something snacky in 15 minutes, and the cantaloupe you were planning on bringing had molded in your fruit basket? Yeah, I’d make white bean dip too, but someone was already bringing that, so I turned to my fridge — and the internet — for some speedy inspiration.

I found it in this recipe for tahini miso dip. Believe it or not, I managed to follow this four-ingredient recipe fairly closely, somewhat of a miracle for me. Instead of using red miso, though, I just used the brown rice miso I had here at home, and plain old water (I wonder what the carbonated water would do for the recipe? Make it a fluffier dip maybe?).

I dug around the fridge a bit more and found some carrot and celery to slice up into bite-sized sticks and I had myself a bringable snack.

The dip was a big hit, and the salty miso and the nutty tahini blend together so nicely. There were red pepper sticks and sesame crackers at the party that complemented the dip well, and I just know it would be perfect with snap peas.

So there you have it: a new recipe for you that has been tried and tested, and a new go-to for me to bring to parties in a pinch.

Oh, how naive I was, thinking that the Food Network could do no wrong. They couldn’t ever let me down, with all the expertise that goes into their recipes, so there’s no way I could choose to make a recipe from Food Network that I’ve never made before and serve it to over 20 people and have it suck. Nope, that could never happen.

It all started very innocently. While perusing through the latest issue of Food Network Magazine (which I absolutely adore, by the way), a recipe for a lightened up hot artichoke-spinach dip caught my eye. Instead of lots of cheese and mayonnaise, it has pureed white beans and a little cheese. Beans = good, so I thought the recipe would be as well. Fresh spinach, fresh basil — and lots of it! — three different kinds of cheese and Worcestershire sauce was surely the recipe for success. I filed it away for later, knowing that I’d serve that recipe at Owen’s birthday party.

And I did. When it came out of the oven all hot and bubbly, I was seriously impressed with myself. I’d never made a hot dip before, mostly because we don’t eat a lot of dairy and I fear the gloppy white stuff you people call mayonnaise like a disease-infested crack house, so this was new territory, and it looked positively gorgeous.

It was far too hot, but I dipped a chip in anyway because I couldn’t wait to try my delectable dip. Yeah, well, perhaps it was just too hot to taste, so I tried it again in a few minutes. Where was that thing called taste? It clearly escaped from this dip during the cooking process, because it had absolutely no zing.

Picture the next scene: me, hauling the gourmet sea salt and Worcestershire sauce out of my cabinet, dousing the dip in front of all of my guests, trying in desperation to give it some flavor — any flavor! It never made it even close to my expectations, and I’m normally a very good recipe reader.

So what have we learned here?

• Food Network is not infallible.
• Tread cautiously when trying a “lightened up” version of anything.
• Don’t test drive a new recipe for a houseful of guests.
• Someone at Food Network Kitchens should be fired, or at least reprimanded in the severest of ways.
• Stick to hummus.

Next Thursday is Thanksgiving. And despite all of the advertisement, it’s not a day off from work to go shopping for so-so deals on so-so electronic gizmos to give away for Christmas. Thanksgiving is a day to give thanks for all that is right and good in your life. A day to spend with family and to show them how much you care about them and how much they mean to you by spending the whole day slaving in a hot kitchen to give them a feast to eat that they will probably complain about anyways.

The traditional Turkey dinner with stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn, cranberry sauce, and a vast variety of cakes, pies, puddings and other sweet desserts takes a couple of days to prepare and minutes to plunder. By the end of the day, it looks like the Food Network has exploded all over the kitchen. There are plates, bowls, and pie tins everywhere with varying amounts of leftover food in them. The ritual of putting all of those leftovers in the fridge has become an art form of crafty stacking of plates, bowls, and tins that were never meant to be stacked together empty, let alone with food still in them.

This year for Thanksgiving I plan to stay away from the family and have a quick non-traditional dinner.

I think I will start with my bacon fried taters. This is a great breakfast, and one of my favorites. Follow that up with a big piece of my peach upside down cake and I will be ready to face the day.

For lunch I want something that is good for watching football. With none of the family around to want to watch the Thanksgiving parade or some sappy old movie, I should be able to sit down and enjoy the football game. I think some nachos and fries will be perfect for lunch. Another big piece of peach upside down cake and a few bottles of Landshark, a couple slices of bacon bear pepperoni pizza and I will really enjoy the football.

After all of this heavy food I think I will go with something lighter for dinner. I will start with my redneck salad. Add some of my grouse fried rice and the appetizers are covered. For the main course I will go with my super cheesy lasagna. And for the perfect end to a great meal the Crusher’s apple crisp with lots of whipped topping.

I hope that everyone has a wonderful and happy Thanksgiving.

In this column, I’ve tried to break certain stereotypes about vegetarians: that we all support PETA, or that vegetarians and vegans are the same thing. Now I’m going to drop another knowledge bomb on you: vegetarians can be just as unhealthy as the rest of you. For example, last night, I took a wonderful vegetarian protein source, tempeh, which is also full of iron and calcium, and made a recipe that involved flour, breadcrumbs, sugar, and butter. Oh, copious amounts of wonderful, artery-clogging butter.

Yes, out of all of the recipes for broiled tempeh, or stir-fried tempeh, I managed to find a recipe for tempeh buffalo wings– and man, were they delightful.

These wings, or “tempeh wingz” as the recipe is actually titled, were obviously originally made by hippies, so I had to modify the recipe slightly. For instance, I do not own rice milk, so I used regular milk. I also don’t have panko, which are Japanese breadcrumbs, so I used regular breadcrumbs. The sauce also calls for agave nectar, but since I’m not Deb, I don’t have that in my kitchen. I ended up using sugar instead, which is a huge mistake that I’ll get to in a moment.

The process of making this is kind of interesting. First, you dip the cut tempeh into the milk, then you dip it in your flour and spices, followed by another milk bath, before it’s covered in breadcrumbs. You bake for 10 minutes on each side, and there you go. The sauce, the recipe for which is also at this link, is a little off for me. For one, it only calls for 2 1/2 T of hot sauce (btw, you have to use Frank’s. That’s not even up for discussion), and you really need way more than that. There is no way you should have 4 T of butter and 4T of ketchup and only use 2 1/2 T of hot sauce. That’s just crazy talk.

The big thing with the sauce though, is the agave nectar/sugar. YOU DON’T NEED IT. Again, I’d like to draw your attention to the 4 T of ketchup. That’s a lot of sugar right there. You don’t need any additional sweetener– it becomes a little sickly. When I made this, I had to add a crapload more hot sauce and a bunch of salt and pepper to try to counter-balance the sugar.

After some major doctoring though, these turned out deliciously. Even Luke, who was intrigued by the familiar buffalo wing smell, but weirded out by the whole tempeh thing, was intrigued. In fact, he ended up snagging several of them, saying that “they seem so wrong, but I still want some.” Now if that’s not an endorsement, I don’t know what is.

I bought brown rice tortillas this week, and that means quesadillas in our house. The little tortilla pies are not something we indulge in very often because they just don’t come out great with corn tortillas. Since Owen and I don’t eat wheat, and we find it hard to work with the texture of the sprouted grain tortillas, we weren’t really left with much choice until I stumbled upon these little beauties at Trader Joe’s.

Of course we couldn’t keep it simple — it’s like unleashing a newly released prisoner in Las Vegas, right on Brothel Street. It’s hard just to ease into it once you’ve been given permission to let loose. We made two different kinds of quesadillas tonight, and it was our melding of two cultures that created the masterpiece.

Yes, we put pesto in a quesadilla, along with homemade sausage from the local meat market, two kinds of cheese and some caramelized onions and mushrooms. A little drizzle of aged balsamic vinegar and a thing of culinary beauty was born.

Quesadilla with Pesto, Sausage and Caramelized Onion

Ingredients:

• 2 tortillas (we used brown rice ones)
• about 2 tablespoons pesto (we used our homemade pesto)
• gourmet sausage (about 1 per quesadilla; we used sun-dried tomato basil), casings removed
• 1 onion, thinly sliced and caramelized
• 8 ounces mushrooms, sliced and sauteed until just browning
• mozzarella cheese, shredded
• feta cheese, crumbled
• aged balsamic vinegar (10 years of syrupy sweetness)

Cook up veggies while scrambling the sausage in another pan until browned and cooked through, about 5-10 minutes.

Then assemble the quesadilla in the following order: bottom tortilla, mozzarella cheese to taste, sausage, onions, mushrooms, feta, more mozzarella, top tortilla.

In a 12-inch skillet over low-to-medium heat, place the quesadilla with a smaller skillet on top, to squish things together so the cheese acts like glue when it melts. Try for about 5 minutes a side, or until cheese is melty and tortillas brown to taste.

Cut with a pizza wheel into four piece and drizzle with the balsamic vinegar just before serving.

You may never go back to a Mexican quesadilla again.

How much do you love sweet and sour chicken wings? That gooey glaze, licking your fingers when they are sticky and covered in that gooey glaze, the golden-brown, appetizing color of the wings, covered in that gooey glaze.

You guessed it: for me, it’s all about the gooey glaze.

But to get that gooey glaze, you need sugar, and lots of it, right? Well, not necessarily. I’ve been experimenting with agave syrup as a sugar replacement in baking with great success (like in berry muffins, banana coconut muffins and Halloween orange muffins) , and tonight I decided to use it to make sweet and sour chicken wings. C’mon, doesn’t that picture say it all? They were fabulous.

I based this recipe on these sweet and sour chicken wings, but I didn’t want to use all that sugar. We honestly don’t eat refined sugar in our house because it just doesn’t make anyone feel good. This time of year, I’m particularly interested in protecting our immune systems and with so many healthy substitutes out there, I just can’t find a need for refined sugar.

Plus, have you seen my kid on sugar? The last time was a family party when my well-meaning mother-in-law made him some gluten-free brownies. It was very thoughtful and he loved them, but not long after he was out on the lawn in the dark, running around in his pajamas making alien noises. I know he’s weird, but the sugar definitely had something to do with that behavior.

Sweet and Sour Chicken Wings Sweetened with Agave Syrup

Ingredients:

• 12 large chicken wings, with wing tips cut off
• 1/4 cup ketchup
• 1/4 cup agave syrup
• 2 tablespoons rice vinegar
• 1 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1 clove garlic, minced

Whisk together ingredients for sauce, then coat chicken wings in about 2/3 of the sauce. Line a cookie sheet with foil and arrange the saucy wings. Bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes. Flip wings, pour the rest of the sauce over them and cook for another 25 minutes.

Take them off the foil before they cool, or they will stick. Ask me how I know.

You can play with this recipe a bit if you like. Try adding some fresh minced ginger, or some five-spice powder. A little oyster sauce or hoisin sauce would be lovely as well.

All appetizers, all the time… that’s what’s cooking this week. Last weekend my siblings and I threw a surprise retirement party for my Dad and I was in charge of appetizers. I wanted to do something fun and different so a-hunting I went for fresh and new recipes.

I didn’t make all of these, but I’ll be sure and report which I did make and how they fared with the crowd.

Chickpea pizza is an appetizer recipe I couldn’t help but file away for another day. This one’s gluten-free and sounds just perfect for my wheat-sensitive kid, with lots of fun flavors to please even people who can eat everything.

Sugar pumpkin, feta and cilantro quesadillas didn’t make the cut for the retirement party, but only because my dad is infinitely weird about cilantro. Since I was catering to him that day, it just wouldn’t have been right to make an appetizer that I lusted after.

Cherry tomatoes stuffed with marinated feta seemed so simple to make, but don’t discount the giant pain in the tutu it is to scoop the flesh out of a cherry tomato. Other than that, it was easy and worth it. I liked having a cold appetizer that was pop-able.

Oh yes, I made the prosciutto filled with happiness, and happiness they brought to everyone who sampled them. You can’t go wrong stuffing that salty meat with toasted pine nuts, currants, gorgonzola crumbles and arugula, probably my favorite green in the universe.

I also made eggplant rolls, stuffed with pesto and mozzarella cheese. They were delicious, but I didn’t get the recipe online, so I’ll share it with you in another post at some point.

I’m just not quite sure how to open this post, without a bunch of OMGs and such. This really, truly was one of the best pizzas I have ever tasted (if I do say so myself).

We based this recipe on a pizza that we adored from a local restaurant, The Boynton, that has a gluten-free pizza menu. This was the four-year-old’s favorite pizza we sampled that night, so we were eager to try to duplicate it for him.

I did make some changes, though, because I wanted to lighten up on the tummy-ache and mucus-inducing dairy a bit. Instead of a white sauce, we used a garlic oil. Why waste the dairy on a milky sauce when we could enjoy more cheese? Six cheeses, to be exact.

Six-Cheese White Pizza with Caramelized Onions and Broccoli

Ingredients:

• your favorite pizza dough (sprouted spelt flour pizza dough for the bread machine wins out here), enough for 2 12-inch pizzas
• 2 onions, thinly sliced and caramelized
• 3-4 cups broccoli florets, chopped into bite-sized pieces
• 1 cup fresh basil leaves, chopped
• 6-8 cloves garlic, minced
• about 2 cups of four-cheese blend
• about 2 cups feta cheese, crumbled
• about 1/2 log fresh mozzarella, thinly sliced

Do your dough however you do it and have your two crusts ready for topping. Add the garlic to about 1/4 cup of olive oil in a small microwavable dish, and nuke it for a minute or two. This cooks the garlic slightly and infuses the oil with all of the garlic yumminess. Spread the garlic oil on your dough.

Meanwhile, quickly steam the broccoli just until it turns bright green, just a minute or two. Layer the cheeses, basil, onions and broccoli onto the pizza crusts.

Cook using the dough’s instructions. Ours is at 450 degrees for about 15 minutes.

Now just enjoy. Be sure to overeat and combine it with plenty of beer so that you’ll be good and bloated. It is totally worth it.

You almost need nothing but a big, juicy slice of watermelon, dripping down your chin as you slurp it down, on this list. My only regret is that seedless watermelon has rendered the seed-spitting contests of my youth obsolete.

Sometimes, though, I just feel the need to get creative. Yeah, I know you’ve figured that out by now. There are some really fun and easy things you can do with watermelon that not only enhance the flavor, but keep you from getting bored.

1. Paula Deen’s watermelon salad has intrigued me from the moment I first saw the recipe: it seems as though it’s perfect. How can anything with fresh mint, feta, a delicate and simple vinaigrette and sweet onion be anything less? Well, you combine all that with a sweet fruit. I know I shouldn’t be a doubter, but it just seems a little strange to me, and the moment I try this recipe, my hot little fingers will type out a report to you.

2. Chop it into chunks and serve it in a bowl with a fork. I know that seems a little lame to count as a number on my list, but if you’ve got a kid, you will save countless shirts by avoiding the whole slice slurp. Trust me — the summer of age two-and-a-half is marked with watermelon-stained memories. You’re welcome.

3. Perhaps Paula Deen has a watermelon fetish, because she’s also got a great recipe for a watermelon cooler, blended with lemon sorbet. Personally, I don’t think watermelon needs any added sugar, so this watermelon cooler recipe with fresh mint and optional honey appeals more to me.

4. How about a creamy dip for watermelon and lemon skewers? The rich dip balanced by the light fruit seems as though it would be a delightful combination.

5. Rachael Ray has a great recipe for watermelon sorbet, except for the fact that she adds a whopping 1/2 cup of light corn syrup to the mix. Um… yuck! Instead, add raw organic agave syrup. It’s got to be better than that processed corn goo, even though there are mixed reports on the healthy aspects of agave.

6. These prosciutto-wrapped watermelon and brie fingers are so simple, yet so elegant. The salty prosciutto with the sweet and juicy watermelon is a perfect pairing, don’t you think?

OK, see anything there to curb your boredom?

I’ve had — and made — chicken wings about a gazillion ways, but I wanted to try a recipe I’ve never done before, and you can’t go wrong with Tyler Florence. His teriyaki chicken wings with sesame and cilantro were divine, and met rave reviews, with one exception.

With just a few tips and tweaks, you’ll be able to make these wings easily and to everyone’s taste satisfaction.

The sauce was completely, utterly perfect. Tyler Florence’s unique twist on teriyaki sauce uses grapefruit juice and everything fresh: giant chunks of garlic, red chiles and ginger, all boiled down with the rest of the ingredients. I would change nothing about this recipe, but I did find that when I doubled the recipe, I ended up with a ton of extra sauce (sitting now in my fridge, waiting for the next use). If you’re doubling the amount of wings, you probably only need to 1.5 times the sauce.

Speaking of doubling the recipe, there were some other little quirks I found; mainly that the cooking times were way off. It took much, much longer than 20 minutes for the sauce to boil down and thicken, and much longer for the wings to get crispy as well, so leave yourself enough time.

One thing I don’t know how to fix is the way the wings stubbornly stuck to the pan. I sprayed the pans first, even though that wasn’t called for in the recipe, and after crisping them up, they are swimming in the melted skin fat, for crying out loud. How they stuck then is beyond me, and then they stuck even worse after they were sauced and glazed. I scraped my little heart out with a spatula and saved most of them, but I’d sure like a trick for this piece.

Although everyone loved the wings, I did have some complaints from the cilantro-haters in my family. Yeah, I know it’s just wrong to hate cilantro, but it happens, and it happens a lot in my family. Instead of judging them, let’s just accommodate for them. Heck, they accommodate for my mayophobia with gourmet potato salads that are mayonnaise-free, so it’s the least I can do. Next time, I’ll serve up a platter sprinkled generously with cilantro and sesame seeds as Tyler suggests, and I’ll also serve a plate plain. Incidentally, I used much less cilantro than the recipe called for (and still got complaints), so you may want to cut back a bit.

All in all, these were pretty easy to make and were a big hit with the crowd. I’d definitely make them again.