Short, Sweet, and to the Point Recipes!

My favorite part of catering during my past career of being a chef was the joy you felt in the room at a special event when you saw people thoroughly enjoying their meal. The food is always something that people will mention when they talk about said event afterward. If the food was bad you could ensure that you were going to lose potential clients over it but if people left satisfied you knew that meant the potential for new clients was rising. Service and presentation can help a meal but it cant save it. You need to have all the right flavors and the dedication to what you’re cooking. I will say that my least favorite part of this career was how time-consuming planning, cooking for and executing the event was. The only thing that ever made this part better was the glorious times that I would have a client who said the words “I want to keep it simple”. This meant I was going to get to have the joy of creating something fun and it wasn’t going to eat up all of my allotted time. I particularly shone in the appetizer and small dessert department in these situations. I wanted to share some of my best (and most popular) ideas with you today. I picked 3 of my appetizers and 3 of my mini desserts to show to you. The best part of these recipes is there is no meticulous amounts to abide by or ridiculously long instructions to follow. ‘Short, sweet, and to the point’ is a motto I love to live by when in the kitchen.

Lil’ Piggies- a delectable little snack made with Hillshire Farms brand Lit’l Smokies (the plain or cheddar ones are the best), thinly sliced applewood smoked bacon, and light brown sugar. Simply wrap a Lit’l Smokie in the bacon, making sure that the bacon goes around once completely, and secure with a toothpick to hold the bacon on. I always left the toothpicks in after cooking for an easy way to serve them. Before cooking dust the bacon-wrapped sausages with brown sugar and then bake at 250 on a flat baking sheet lined with foil for about 10 minutes or until the bacon is thoroughly cooked. Low and slow with lots of attention is the best way to ensure that they will not burn. These are best served with BBQ with a tablespoon of A1 steak sauce mixed in but most of the time I was told that they barely needed any sauce.

Wrapped and Stuffed Banana Peppers- This recipe is a take on traditional jalapeno poppers but with a twist. They are wrapped in bacon! As someone who has a hard time eating spicy things but also has a hard time resisting a good jalapeno popper, I came up with these on a whim. You will start by halving and de-seeding the banana peppers (sweet banana peppers are always the best). To make the stuffing simply take one to two packages of cream cheese and mix in sweet Hungarian paprika, garlic powder, and McCormick Grill Mates Sweet and Smokey rub to taste and continue mixing until the cream cheese becomes smooth. Obviously, not everybody carries sweet Hungarian paprika or that specific brand of rub but these are easily substituted to whatever you have at hand just ensure it’s going to give you a smokey flavor profile. After creating the filling begin stuffing each pepper half with your desired amount using a spoon. You can use the back of the spoon or a butter knife to ensure it evenly spreads across the pepper from top to bottom. Finally, it’s bacon time! I use thinly slice applewood smoked bacon and always make sure to wrap the entire length of the banana pepper. Use two toothpicks to pin each end of the bacon in place before baking. Lay your peppers out on a foil-covered baking sheet. I always foil my baking sheet first so that I can lay the peppers down directly on it after I wrap them in the bacon. Pop them in the oven at 250 for about 7-10 minutes or until the bacon is thoroughly cooked.

To-Go Antipasto Salad- My daughter and I are salad FIENDS! We love pretty much all salads and these delightful, fun, little treats always were a big hit for us and for the events I made them for! Imagine a little salad that you can eat in a few bites and walk around with as you snack on them? In come these wonderful skewers! This one is by far minimal effort for great reward. The ingredients are simple, you will need slices of salami (i always liked using calabrese), grape tomatoes, spinach, marinated baby mozzarella balls, green olives, and fresh banana pepper cut into rings. You will also need zesty Italian dressing to drizzle over top of the skewers. I suggest getting the larger size skewers since these tend to go quickly and you’ll be able to hand them out as a hardier appetizer the more stuff you can fit on them. Start with a grape tomato and from there fold a piece of spinach in half and slide that up the skewer to rest under the tomato. After you add your first piece of spinach, move on to skewering a mozzarella ball and then fold and place another piece of spinach. The third placement will be a piece of folded up salami and another piece of folded spinach, then add the olive and another spinach leaf under that. After you get to the olive I suggest adding another ball of cheese (being sure to follow that up with a piece of spinach) another piece of salami (also following that up with another piece of spinach) and another tomato (and spinach! See the pattern?) before adding the banana pepper ring. This tends to break up having two very distinct flavors right next to each other when it comes to the olive and banana pepper. Then repeat down the entire length of the skewer. Once you’ve created your beautiful skewer no salad would be complete without a little dressing so go ahead and lightly drizzle them with your zesty Italian dressing.

Mini fruit pizzas- bite-size fruit pizzas with a sweet fruit dip as the sauce and a sugar cookie crust topped with blueberries and a slice of strawberry. This recipe is great because you can customize what fruit you use but it is even better because you don’t have to overstuff them. To make the crusts simply use a muffin tin with some sugar cookie dough. Take a small ball of dough and begin pushing it down into the bottom of the muffin tin. You will want to make sure it’s enough to leave a dip in the cookie but not enough to fill the entire cup. You will want it to look like a little pizza! The cookies will only need to cook for 7-10 minutes at max (depending on how high you cook them at) because of how small they are. I would cook them at 350 and be sure to keep an eye on them constantly after about 5 minutes if need be. Be sure they are COMPLETELY cooled before removing them from the muffin tin and putting on the toppings. For the dip, I always make my own. In true fashion of keeping it simple, all you will need for it will be marshmallow fluff and cream cheese! I usually used 1 8oz pack of cream cheese to 1 13oz container of Kroger brand marshmallow creme. I also used a hand mixer to ensure that I get a nice creamy texture. Once the cookies have completely cooled scoop the desired amount of ‘sauce’ onto each ‘crust’. Finally cut the strawberries into small slices and place one slice on top of each mini fruit pizza then place 2-3 blueberries next to the slice of strawberry.

Banana Hazelnut Chocolate cups- These are some of my favorites. Sweet banana chips and savory fresh hazelnut cuddled by delicious milk or dark chocolate. And again we are going above and beyond simple with this one! Get yourself some melting chocolate (Godiva melting chips are the best with this recipe!), some dried banana chips, some pre-chopped hazelnuts, cupcake liners, and a muffin tin, and boom! Begin by chopping the banana chips into very small pieces. I buy the pre-chopped hazelnuts but I highly suggest giving them a second chop over as well. Line the muffin tin with the cupcake liners and melt the chocolate. When pouring the melted chocolate in the cupcake lines be sure not overfill. You don’t want to fill over halfway depending on how big you want the finished product to be. Once you’ve filled all the liners put the chopped banana chips and hazelnuts in each and mix them around with a toothpick and ensure all of them are submerged in the chocolate. Place the muffin tin into the fridge and allow them to completely solidify before serving. Now there is nothing left but to enjoy this dreamy treat!

S'more Skewers- another amazing skewer all dressed and ready to impress! A mini s'more on a stick that looks like something a gnome would buy at his local county fair! Warning! you will not be able to have just one of these so make ALOT! For these easy sweet little treats, you are going to need mini-marshmallows, melting chocolate (Godiva melting chips of course!), and Golden Grahams cereal. Youll start by skewering 3 mini marshmallows on a lollipop stick. I bought a bag of them at my local grocery store from the cooking aisle for a couple of bucks Once you have the number of skewers you want to make, start melting your chocolate. Dip your marshmallow snowman (that’s what my daughter calls them) into the chocolate and while it’s still wet stick 3 Golden Grahams on each side of the marshmallows. You will see that the Golden Grahams sit perfectly on top of each marshmallow creating a nice little mini s'more. Set on a baking sheet and allow to cool in the fridge. Once the chocolate is cooled the Golden Grahams will be stuck to the marshmallows. This particular recipe is perfect for kids! But let’s get real, who doesn’t love a good s'more?