I’ve officially found the easiest holiday appetizer ever — these adorable little skewers!
For my Christmas party this past weekend, my mom brought up a fantastic batch of grape tomatoes for us to use. So a quick little appetizer, we pulled together these! Seriously, it took more time to cut up the cheese and green peppers than it did to assemble them.
Some people have shelves full of cookbooks in their house. Others have piles and files of recipes clipped from magazines. Me? I have ne-ver-end-ing columns of recipes bookmarked on my laptop!! Seriously — my columns in my Firefox bookmarks are so long you have to scroll through them. My oh my. :)
So this week, decided to revisit some of my original favorites and bring them to life! First up was this quick, delicious-sounding brown butter pasta recipe that I’d bookmarked from Miss “Everyday Italian” herself. The short, common list of ingredients had caught my eye months ago, and the raving reviews made it sound even better!
As much as I love creativity in the kitchen, and have no fear about testing out brand new recipes on a crowd (for better and worse!), there are days where I’m all about going with something tried and true. :) And when I found myself in need of a quick appetizer this weekend, happily reverted to this recipe. It’s been my appetizer “default” for many years, and is always a crowd-pleaser. Truly! I’ve never thrown or been to a party where each of these did not disappear!!
So if you’re looking for classy, charming presentation with big flavor and minimal prep — these chipotle chicken cups are for you! The original recipe was actually for chipotle shrimp cups, which I have made many times. But I, and others who chose to weigh in, always thought that the other ingredients always overpowered the shrimp. Didn’t seem worth it, so chicken it is. :) And while the original called for specifically chipotle-flavored salsa, I often just use whatever salsa is on hand and then add in a little chipotle powder. Love the subtle smoky-ness that it adds!