Mains that we had:
#1) Miniquiches - the one photo!! I believe I made about 120 or so of these in advance and froze them. They were ALL gone by the end of the night. I sing the praises of this beautiful recipe: you don't have to deal with mini pie crusts, incredibly flavourful and you can make it two weeks in advance, freeze, and have it taste spectacular on the day of. Follow exactly other than substituting vegetarian sausage for meat if needed AND pay attention to the quantity/type of salt. In fact I'm posting the recipe below because of my fear that one day this link won't work...
Ingredients:
2 tablespoons melted butter
½ cup Panko* bread crumbs
4 large eggs
⅓ cup half and half
**½ teaspoon sea salt OR 1/4 tsp of regular kosher/dinner table salt**
1 small potato, about 2 ounces, cooked, cooled and diced
1 link chicken sausage, pre-cooked, crumbled
3 medium green onion, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh basil
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
fresh ground black pepper
Directions:
1. Heat oven to 350°F.
2. Generously spray 24 mini-muffin cups with cooking spray, then wipe with a paper towel to completely coat. Place a small amount of melted butter in each muffin cup (about 1/4 teaspoon)
3. Pat 1 rounded teaspoon of Panko in the bottom of each cup.
4. Beat eggs, half-and-half, salt & ground pepper in medium bowl until blended.
5. Mix cheese, potato, Italian sausage, green onion and fresh basil in a separate bowl. Spoon about 1 tsp of filling into every muffin cup. Add enough egg mixture so the muffin cup is about 3/4 of the way full. Spoon evenly into the mini-muffin cups, about 1 tablespoon each.
6. Bake on lowest rack in 350°F oven until lightly browned and set, about 15-20 minutes (err on the side of 15 if not certain!). Cool on rack 5 minutes. Loosen quiches from sides of muffin cups with a thin knife. Remove from cups; serve warm. Garnish with finely chopped fresh herbs, if desired.
7. If freezing, place on wire racks of baking tray in freezer. Once frozen, transfer to freezer ziplock bags. To reheat, place quiches on baking tray and bake directly from freezer at 350 degrees F for 12-14 minute until hot.
#2) Prosciutto cups with minced pear & goat cheese - so incredibly popular I could not keep these on the serving trays. The goat cheese addition is an absolute must! You can bake the prosciutto cups one day before and prep the pear the morning of (as long as you squeeze a bit of lemon juice over it) and assemble as the party goes along.
#3) Feta Walnut Date Cigars - basically a feta walnut date mixture rolled into buttery phyllo goodness. Delectable! Can be made up to a week in advance & frozen. The only thing I would say in retrospect is they were a little dry -- perhaps a Tbs or so of cream or evaporated milk in the filling might help with that? Also, adding in a Tbs of chopped dried rosemary to the filling is a must. Can y also use a bit more dates if desired - I probably used closer to 2/3 c.
#5) Peanut butter & scallion topped pineapple cubes - oddly addictive and more of a hit than I anticipated! This recipe required some tweaking though which was not recorded - if I had to stretch my memory, I would say it required more peanut butter, a lot of coriander, possibly some sweet chili sauce and a lot of lime. I would make the topping one to two days in advance to really let the flavors develop but don't cut up the pineapple early - as I learned the hard way, it turns brown! And canned pineapple just doesn't compare.
#6) Smoked salmon on rye with horseradish cream. Surprisingly the least popular and the most effort to assemble right before/during the party. If I did it again, I think I would just have the smoked salmon on a tray with sauce in a bowl along side and baguette or crackers for people to serve themselves. Note that I am not complaining about having 300 g or so of freshly smoked salmon left over to eat during the week!
#7) Stuffed grape leaves (dolmades) from scratch! Honestly quite proud of myself for this one. I've never bought grape leaves before and I had so many that I ended up testing two recipes: one in a crockpot which I would not recommend - it seems the dolmades fall apart quite easily and become like a stew at the bottom, and the one I linked to above which was so flavorful and looked beautiful piled in the cast iron skillet. My only substitution was veggie broth for chicken broth. No other changes needed! The ONE downside of serving this for a party food is if you are like me and only like dolmades hot, it's very difficult to pull off. In the future, I would save this as a dinner party recipe as opposed to a finger food that is out all evening becoming colder and colder...
#8) Spiced almonds. Doesn't really fit into the mains or dips & crackers list, but SO GOOD. Such a great foodie gift as well. You can make them and store them in the freezer for weeks - they taste perfectly fresh when brought out! (I actually loved snacking on the leftovers straight from the freezer for about two weeks). spice combination I used was as follows:
1/4 c. white sugar
1 tsp kosher salt (like dinner table salt)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
3/4 - 1 tsp cayenne
1 Tbs water
1 Tbs honey
1 tsp olive oil
for 2 1/2 c. almonds
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