One thing about me, with the exception of holidays, I rarely make a recipe twice, let alone 3 times in the span of a few weeks! This recipe is now a family favorite. I don’t know exactly what it is. Maybe it’s the fact that I don’t often use ground chicken. Ground turkey, all the time, so I may be a bit sick of ground turkey. Ground chicken seems to taste milder to me. It carries other flavors better. I don’t know, I’m just all about ground chicken right now. Then there’s the richness of the dish; cream cheese, Parmesan, mozzarella, pesto; all the good stuff! Give this a try and let me know if it becomes a part of your meal rotation.

Back to the appetizer recipes! Lori made these meatballs and they were delicious. So tangy sweet and savory little balls of yum.

Some people may think I was crazy to host two bridal showers in as many weeks. Crazy like a fox is what I say!

The shower that Abigail, Kaley, Alyse, and Marissa threw for Lindsey left me with a bounty of items and ideas to use for Megan’s shower, two weeks later.

Kaley did such a beautiful job with the chalkboard art that I immediately knew I’d be using it again!

Abigail left behind a wonderful bulletin board where she had guests write words of sage advice for the bride-to-be, Lindsey.

I just had to recycle it for Megan’s shower, as seen on the left edge of the photo below.

Then there were the “Welcome” and “Presents” banners that Abigail made.

Yes, I reused them as well.

So, as you can see, hosting two versions of the same sort of party in a short amount of time is easier than hosting just one!

Here is another appetizer from Megan’s shower.

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You gotta love the versatility of your basic meatball. Thrown into pasta, stuffed into a sub sandwich, or tossed with a little sauce for the perfect toothpick-ready party food – all options are delish!

And when you substitute ground turkey for the usual beef or pork… you can have your healthy meatball and eat it too.

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When my kids were little, like a lot of kids, they would ask for “basghetti”  for dinner all the time.  I would brown up some ground beef, onion, and garlic then season the meat mixture and add a couple of cans of tomatoes, then toss in cooked spaghetti noodles and call it a day.  As they got older, they would request it with meatballs. Being a good Irish girl, I wasn’t exactly an expert at Italian meatballs, so I would try to brown the ground beef orbs in a frying pan. Inevitably the result was a broken-up mess of over or undercooked meat that did not resemble balls of any sort. Finally, I got wise and decided to bake them instead, and voila, perfect meatballs! Over the years, I’ve perfected the recipe to its current state and my grown kids still ask for it by its name – ” can we have basghetti, please!” We have house guests this week, one of them is a darling 4 1/2-year-old named Zada.  Zada is the daughter of my long-time (24+ years) friend, Nancy, and more on Nancy and Zada in the days to come.
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It’s Football Season! Today is opening day and our Arizona Cardinals are at home vs. San Francisco. All I can say is, “GO CARDS!!!” Here are three quick and simple hors d’œuvres using buffalo mozzarella. Cow’s milk fresh mozzarella balls may be substituted. The Stacks can be served hot, cold, or at room temperature. If serving cold or at room temperature, use Belgium endive spears to serve the stacks on. If heating, the stacks will be placed on toasted baguette slices. An important thing to pay attention to when preparing this recipe is to try to buy zucchini and eggplant that are similar in size when cut into rounds. Instead of cutting a large ball of mozzarella, bocconcini (tiny little mozzarella balls) may be used. You’ll notice that the baguette, eggplant, and zucchini are all sliced on a diagonal. This gives you a much large piece and better shape to work with, rather than cutting straight down into rounds.

The Prosciutto Picks couldn’t be easier or more convenient. They also may be served cold or at room temperature. Finally, the Meatballs are simply delicious! I like to roll half of the Parmesan cheese before baking and leave half plain, it makes for a more interesting presentation on the platter. You may dollop with purchased Marinara or with the same yummy tomato-pesto sauce used on the Parmesan Chicken recipe from the September 9 post from a couple of days ago.

buffalo mozzarella hor d’oeuvre platter

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