"A gourmet who thinks of calories is like a tart who looks at her watch." - James Beard
Deviled Eggs are always a hit at parties and potlucks. My aunt's deviled eggs are famous in our family. But they're kind of a pain to make and transport, even if you have a fancy deviled egg tray.
These lazy versions are much easier! You don't need a piping bag or any other special tools - although there are a couple of pieces of equipment that do make these especially easy, but you can make them without anything special.
Instead of scooping out the yolks, you just slice up hard boiled eggs, season them and serve them on a cracker. It couldn't be simpler! And you can transport the peeled eggs to your location and make them fresh on site quickly, instead of transporting piped egg halves that can get squashed.
One of the things that makes this particular recipe so easy is using an Instant Pot to cook the eggs. If you don't have one, you can just hard boil your eggs the normal way, but the Instant Pot makes wonderful hard boiled eggs that never get that green line around the yolk.
To hard boil eggs in the Instant Pot, use the rack. Put a cup of water in the bottom of the pot and place your eggs on the rack. This recipe calls for only 3 hard boiled eggs to make 18 bites, but why not cook more eggs to double the recipe or have for lunch during the week?
If you want to hard boil a dozen eggs, just pile them on top of each other! Close the lid and set to low pressure for 7 minutes for a creamy hard yolk. For a firmer yolk, try 8 minutes. For a jammy yolk, 6 minutes (not for this recipe, but if that's what you like, go for it.)
Release the pressure manually, remove the lid, and use tongs to plunge the eggs into a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking.
The nice thing about the Instant Pot is peeling the eggs. The peels come off beautifully! I do recommend peeling them just after cooling, because the peels are a little harder to get off cleanly if you refrigerate the eggs in their shells.
Mix some mayonnaise and Dijon mustard together.
Spread a little on 18 plain rice crackers.
Peel the eggs and slice them into even rounds. An egg slicer is really great to have for this step, and super cheap. If you don't have one, carefully cut them with a knife as evenly as possible.
Place an egg round on each rice cracker. Sprinkle with smoked paprika, kosher or sea salt, and a sprig of dill.
I took these to a work potluck and it was so simple to mix up the dijon mayonnaise and cook the eggs the night before, then slice the eggs and assemble the bites right there in our work kitchen. People loved that it was just a taste of deviled egg, rather than half an egg. And you really get a lot of bang for your buck, making 18 servings out of 3 eggs!
Here's the recipe:
Ingredients:
3 hard-boiled eggs
1 tablespoon mayonaisse
1 tablespoon dijon mustard
18 plain rice crackers
smoked paprika
sea salt or kosher salt
fresh dill
Instructions:
Mix the mayonaisse and mustard together and spread on rice crackers
Slice the eggs. Place one egg slice on each cracker
Sprinkle with paprika and salt and a small sprig of dill
Enjoy!
This is an incredibly easy 3-ingredient dish that will wow guests at any potluck or holiday gathering.
It doesn't seem like much - just cream cheese, caramel and crushed skor bars. But when you combine them and refrigerate overnight, it becomes a tangy, sweet and crunchy dip for apple slices.
In a class dish or pie plate, spread the cream cheese into a thick layer.
Cover the cheese layer with caramel.
Spread into an even layer over the cream cheese.
Crush the Skor bars into small crumbs by placing them in a plastic freezer bag and pounding with a meat mallet or heavy pan.
Spread the crumbled Skor bits over the dip, cover, and refrigerate overnight. The chocolate on the bottom will start to meld into the caramel a bit, but the top will stay crunchy.
Serve with sliced apples for dipping. You could even try dipping pretzels or ladyfingers.
Believe me, people will love this!
Here's the (simple) recipe:
Ingredients
340 gram tub spreadable plain cream cheese
250 gram tub old fashioned caramel sauce (found in the refrigerated section of the grocery store in the produce aisle)
191 gram package mini Skor bars or 5 full size Skor bars, smashed into small pieces
1 lemon
6-8 apples for serving, sliced
Instructions
Spread the cream cheese in a thick layer in a glass baking dish or pie plate.
Spread the caramel sauce over the cream cheese
Spread the Skor pieces over the caramel layer
Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate 24 hours
Squeeze the juice of the lemon into a large bowl and add a cup of water.
Slice the apples and dip the slices in the lemon water to prevent browning
Serve the dip surrounded by apple slices
Enjoy!
Fresh popcorn coated in white chocolate, cake mix and sprinkles makes an adorable, fun snack!
This is a great treat for a kids (or grownups) party, a school snack or just for fun.
The ingredients are easy to find in the bulk store or the baking aisle.
Here's what you need for this easy recipe:
It is the secret dream of my life to become a pastry chef. Pastry is usually considered more exact and less forgiving than savoury cooking and it appeals to my love of being careful and following rules. Particularly, I would love to make croissants. There's a course at the Cordon Bleu school in Ottawa on Viennoiseries (croissants, brioche) that I would love to attend.
These little cheese puffs are made from pâte à choux. The dough steams to create a light, fluffy puff that can be used to make cream puffs, profiteroles and éclairs. Or you can add cheese like I did for a delicious, savoury treat.
Since it's the end of the year I'm planning a few roundup posts of things I've cooked this year that deserve a second look. This will allow us to reflect back over the year and allow me to take some time off from cooking.
If you're still looking for ideas for appetizers this holiday season, consider shrimp! Two tasty appetizer posts are linked below - one simple as can be and the other a little more complex. Enjoy!
Shrimp Cocktail
This is so much nicer and and almost as easy as buying a frozen shrimp ring! Give it a try.
Shrimp Summer Rolls
A little trickier but a lovely appetizer if you're having guests over. Healthy too!
