Power Snacks

80P and I threw together a bit of a last minute party on Friday night. And because I’ve been so busy at work, I wasn’t able to properly plan or shop. But somehow I whipped up three apps just from my pantry and fridge in about an hour or so. Now I know that sounds kinda obnoxious, like, Oh, gansie, come on, you’re a food blogger, of course you can throw together party snacks. But seriously, I was impressed with my own kitchen prowess (my new favorite word.)

While I won’t go into the details of the shit show of a party, (yes, that’s right, we played power hour like a bunch of college kids) I will gladly give an overview of the night’s snacks. If we were encouraging our friends to drink a shot of beer every minute for an hour, we clearly needed to provide snacks to help soak up the PBR.

Roasted Poblano and Garlic Scape Dip

I made this dip earlier in the week when I was in a cooking mood, but never got around to eating it. I know – crazy. Now I did struggle with this dip a bit. My dip dogma is heat. If there isn’t a certain spiciness or kick I’m not going to bother. I thought the poblano would add enough of a kick, but it was really mellow. And garlic scapes don’t have the bite of garlic, so that didn’t add to the kick factor either. This dip was more of a refreshing feeling, especially scooped up with the cucumbers.

After I roasted and peeled the poblano, I roughly chopped it and threw it in the blender. I added 2 garlic scapes into the blender along with a spoonful of sour cream, about 4 oz of cream cheese, cumin, lemon juice, salt and pepper. The mixture will be fairly thin, so let it firm up in the fridge before serving. I added an extra sprinkling of pepper on top. For the cukes, I thinly sliced them and then cut them in half.

More party recipes post jump

Rosemary and Garlic Olives

I always have visions of drinking dirty martinis while typing on my laptop, yes, I worship at the alter of Carrie Bradshaw. But, it’s more like me in sweats drinking 3 day old coffee and Britacized water. Basically this means I had a jar of green olives stuffed with pimentos that I had to use up.

I tossed the olives with raw, chopped garlic (2 cloves), some fresh rosemary, coarsely ground black pepper, kosher salt and a touch of extra virgin. I let that sit in the fridge to meld together.

Mustard-Horseradish Egg Salad Toasts

I’ll throw it out there: I’d say that eggs are my favorite thing to eat. So like most households, I always have them on hand. I didn’t want to make deviled eggs because I haven’t perfected how to peel the eggs and with the rough chop of egg salad, I wouldn’t have to worry about looks.

With the chopped hard boiled eggs, I mixed in a grainy dijon mustard and horseradish. My girl Maidelitala can’t handle dairy so I omitted the mayo. (Commercial mayo is dairy, right? And homemade mayo isn’t? Thoughts?) And to be honest, no one even missed the creaminess of the mayo. The combination of the yolks with the mustard and horseradish definitely gave the egg salad the same mouthfeel.

I still have some garlic scapes, so I threw that in for some added color and texture and seasoned the dish with s&p. I let that chill as well and I totally meant to garnish each toast with a few capers, but I had guests to entertain at that point and wanted to get out of the kitchen and forgot at the last minute. For the bread, I simply toasted whole wheat bread and cut it into squares.

And I kept the crust on. Party foul?