Holiday Apps

We are heading into full Thanksgiving prep mode around here this weekend. We will be hosting six friends this year and of course we always use some Picnic Spreads. Here are four of our favorites, that are also super easy to put together. When your guests arrive and ask if they can help with anything, this is it.

Clockwise from top left:

Picnic Herbed Goat Cheese on Endive and / or Baguette Slices with Bacon Crumbles

You can slice the bacon into lardons and make the day before. Then a little schmear of PIcnic Herbed Goat Cheese Spread on either endive leaves or baguette slices, some bacon crumbles, and your done! Arrange on a platter with extra Herd Goat Cheese in the middle for additional crackers if you like.

picnic Chipotle sage Apples with Toasted Pepitas

Toast about a quarter cup of crushed pepitas in a dry pan, set aside. Put a bit of Chipotle Sage on each apple slice, then sprinkle with some pepitas. I put some greens tossed in olive oil & sea salt on the side for color on the plate, but it is actually quite good to take a piece or two and top the apple slices with it.

picnic parmesan chorizo bites

For these I always have the chorizo sliced as thin as possible, but to where it will not bend when people pick them up. I find the Olli Salumi’s are great for this, if you prefer a non-spicy salumi any of their flavors work really well for this bite. I usually take the package to the deli counter and ask them to slice it for me, just as a warning, they will probably be less than stoked when you ask. Whole Foods has been great about this, where Harris Teeter, not so much.

Top each slice with with Picnic Parmesan Spread and sprinkle with either thinly sliced scallions (shown) or Italian parsley. Make a lot of these, they will go the quickly!

Picnic tandoori garlic sweet potato chips with candied pecans

If you are going to make your own candied pecans you can do that up to a week ahead of time and store in an air tight container. If not, they are quite easy to find in most markets at this time of the year.

For this bite I use the Route 11 Crinkle Cut Sweet Potato Chips. Go ahead and get two bags, you do have to dig through and get all the larger chips out for this plated appetizer. You can save the small bits to top a casserole instead of the old Ritz Crackers.

Top all the large chips you pulled out with a dollop of Picnic Tandoori Garlic Spread then top each one with a candied pecan.

If all goes well in the kitchen this weekend I will be putting up a great roasted carrot recipe. If not, have a lovely Thanksgiving, and there will be many more recipes coming soon.

 

And onto the Dessert…

…to go with the Asparagus Parmesan Sandwich in my last post. I started making this last Summer after I created our first batch of Sugared Lemon Spread. It’s one of those super easy, after dinner desserts you can prepare while your guest are still debating the hot dinner topic.

First, take our Sugared Lemon Spread that has been brought to room temperature, blackberries and / or raspberries, and some crushed marcona almond’s. Then place berries in a cup top a dollop of Sugared Lemon and crushed marcona almonds, and you’re done. You can prepare ahead in individual cups if you like, but be sure to take out of fridge about 20 minutes or so before serving.

I love to hear what our customers are doing with our products, this one is compliments of a customer at the Potomac Village Farmer’s Market. She took the Sugared Lemon Spread and spread it around the inside and top of an ice cream cone (she used a cake cone), then put blackberry frozen yogurt from a local creamery on top. I will definitely be trying that one over the Summer!

For those of you who do not live in the DC Metro area and do not have access to our products, I will also be posting recipes that do not need Picnic Spreads.

My New Favorite Summer Sandwich

Well it’s been a few weeks since I started the blog, and it has been a wild few weeks. We’ve started the Farmer’s Markets and it has been a blast, we are so thankful for all of our new customers who have already shown their support for our product. We are so pleased to hear how much everyone is enjoying it. We’ll be introducing more new flavors over Summer.

Speaking of Summer, that is what this blog post is to be about, my new favorite Summer sandwich. It is an Asparagus Parmesan Grilled Sandwich. So this afternoon after making numerous batches of our Parmesan Spread for the markets this week, I was pretty hungry. I had some wonderful aspargus from McLeaf’s Orchard and wanted something sort of Summer comfort food, if that’s possible.

First I grilled the asparagus. Then to assemble the sandwich I put our Parmesan Spread on each side of a baquette, a layer of gruyere cheese, the grilled asparagus, then a sprinkling of Italian parsley (whenever I mention parsley I mean Italian parsley, not the curly stuff they put on your plate at Denny’s).

Then instead of using the panini press, I used a pizza tray and a grill press on the already hot grill. You can do this in a panini press, but the grill just gives it that special something. And, you do not have to clean the panini press! I had the grill on a medium flame and cooked for about 5 – 7 minutes, flipping once a few minutes in.

As the title states this is my new favorite Summer sandwich; It was filling without making you feel like a slug mid-day (the way an all cheese sandwich can).  It gives you that hearty, filling, feeling that adding meat would do.

Over the Summer I will  be doing this for friend’s for either lunch or dinner. For that I will add my arugula salad with oranges and pistachios, add a bottle of Vinho Verde (my favorite Summer wine), and relax on the deck on the (hopefully soon to be delivered) outdoor dining set.  Oh, and then for the dessert…