These individual lasagna servings are a fun and less-mess way to serve lasagna at a casual party.  They are delicious straight from the oven or even at room temperature.

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Buffalo Chicken “Wings” without the bones or the mess. Yum!

Buffalo Meatballs

Meatballs
1 pound ground chicken or turkey
2 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
2 eggs
2 tablespoons diced celery
1/4 cup crumbled blue cheese
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Sauce
1/2 cup Frank’s Red Hot
1/2 stick unsalted butter

Celery sticks

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For the next several days I will be giving you quick and easy party food ideas. Finger food or individual serving-size portions of what would normally be a larger dish.

These six-ingredient spirals are an example of that. You may think of chicken cordon bleu as an elegant dinner entrée, but with this preparation, it becomes a fun bite-size treat.

Chicken Cordon Bleu Spirals

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
Salt, freshly ground black pepper, and garlic powder for seasoning
4 thin slices of deli ham
4 thin slices of provolone cheese
1/2 cup flour
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup panko breadcrumbs

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Connor is completely addicted to these tasty morsels!  And if I had owned and operated a bar, I would put out huge bowls of these. Customers would inhale them and then order more drinks!

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So easy, so good!

Sweet and Savory Pretzel Bites

1 package frozen Rhodes dinner rolls, thawed according to package directions
Savory
3/4 cup baking soda
1 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
Kosher salt
Sweet
Melted butter
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 cup sugar

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I purchased one too many package of fresh pizza dough from Trader Joe’s last week for classes. I also had a few extra onions on hand and I always have plenty of herbs in the garden. Pretty much a no-brainer as to what to make with that dough, but I really didn’t want to use cheese or make a sauce.  Then I remembered a foccacia I’d had in California that had an savory almond paste as the “sauce” – almonds, herbs, and caramelized onions… YES!

This did not turn out to be the prettiest focaccia I’ve ever seen or made, but my husband, son, and dad will attest to the fact that is darn tasty! One way to add a bit more color would be to sprinkle on the herbs after it comes out of the oven instead of before it goes in … so, yeah … do that!

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I have a plethora of peaches and a ton of tomatoes taking up precious room in my refrigerator – what to do?  There is only one thing to do and that is to make my Famous Peach Salsa. I was shocked to discover that I hadn’t posted this recipe in the three-plus year lifespan of this blog.  How is that even possible? I’ve been making this salsa since 1993.  The photo above is of me making it at the 1996 Duncan Family Farms Peach Festival. Gotta love the overall shorts I’m sporting there!

Yeah, I’ve been rocking this salsa for nearly two decades!

And one of the people who love my salsa the very MOST is my BFF, Peggy.  She came over to not only enjoy the salsa but to finally “do something” with the crates that we acquired back in February. What crates, you ask?  Remember – THESE CRATES!

I turned mine into a rolling side-table and Peggy and I turned her two crates into rolling herb gardens… via Pinterest.

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Do you remember the 2005 summer box office hit Wedding Crashers? Sure you do. But do you remember what John’s (Owen Wilson) nickname for Jeremy (Vince Vaughn) was?  No!?!?  Only one of the best nicknames in movie history and one of my favorite words to say!

Baba Ghanoush

Besides being an awesome nickname, baba ghanoush is a delicious smoky Mediterranean dip!  First imagine hummus, and now imagine substituting soft and creamy cooked eggplant for the chickpeas. There you have it – baba ghanoush!

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I mentioned the other day that I’m in the middle of my three-week cooking series at Les Gourmettes. The first week was a Mother’s Day brunch menu and I needed kiwifruit for a fruit salad. Yes, I said “kiwifruit”, not just “kiwi”.  That is because kiwi is a bird and kiwifruit is … well, it’s a fruit!

Kiwifruit grows on vines and is named after the flightless kiwi bird, native to New Zealand, with hair-like brown feathers. They lay greenish-white eggs. Kiwi fruits are native to China, where they were originally called “macaque peach”.

Nutrition-wise, kiwifruits contain about as much potassium as bananas, are packed with more vitamin C than an equivalent amount of orange, and are also rich in Vitamins A and E. Plus the black seeds can be crushed to produce kiwi fruit oil, which is very rich in important Omega-3 essential fatty acid.

Since this is a cooking blog and not a blog about birds, it is safe to say that when you see “kiwi” in a recipe here, you can be 100% certain I’m talking about the fruit and not the bird.

So anyhow… back to the kiwi, I needed for my class.  I went to the grocery store and the price of kiwi was 2 for $1. I needed 10 kiwis and I wasn’t about to pay $5 for them. I remembered that I’d seen kiwi at Costco. Sure enough, there was a big carton for $5.59. When I say a big carton, I mean 30 kiwis!  That’s more than I needed, of course, but that’s not the point.  The point is, I wasn’t going to pay 50 cents each at one store when I could just as easily pay 19 cents each elsewhere.

Um, yeah, so now I have 20 kiwis sitting here that I have to try and find something to do with. So, it’s gonna be a kiwi weekend.

First up, how about a lesson on how to properly and easily peel a kiwi?

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These tasty wrapped little potatoes are perfect to serve as an appetizer with a Sriracha mayonnaise dipping sauce or served without the mayo as a side dish.

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