EASY Make-Ahead Appetizers for Stress-Free Hosting!

[Music] hello everyone I am so happy to see you again if you hear a rumbling sound in this video it is a tree service that is outside trimming some of the branches from my trees they are grinding the branches and then they are leaving me with all of the resulting wood chips that I can use in the garden anyway I have a couple of friends who are coming for drinks and nibbles later today so I thought it would be fun to make some easy party appetizing so I have some recipes here we are going to make chive pesto and we will use the chives that are in the garden we're going to make homemade hummus and for the first time in my life I'm going to try this recipe for sheet pan quesadillas and the first thing we need to do is buy some ingredients so please take a short drive with me we're headed to the local Farm Store when we wake hear the birds and see the sun side by side our fears are done oh the good times just [Music] begun oh we know what we have let's Hold On Tight found what we're looking for in life call us crazy but things are finally right with you and I the future is bright [Music] I'm going to put my farm store loot away and then we can head out to the herb garden to grab some [Music] chives there are two varieties of chives common chives and garlic chives I only grow the common variety to harvest the herb cut stems from the base of the plant as close as possible to the ground now you and I made chai pesto last August in fact we made a lot of it and we froze it I only have one jar out of I think eight jars left so chai pesto freezes perfectly and Once you thaw it it is so delicious in fact it is out of the this world delicious I hope you will give it a try and the good thing about chives is that once you harvest the chives will just keep growing you can cut the plant all the way to the ground and in about 3 weeks the plant will be ready to harvest again it's very fast herb okay so my chives are cleaned up going to roughly chop them [Music] and I will put my recipe for chai pesto in the description below I just put the chives in my food processor here then I need a clove or two of garlic I want to process the chives and the garlic just to roughly chop them now I need some almonds you could use pine nuts parmesan [Music] cheese pulse again then with the machine running I will add enough olive oil through the feed tube until I achieve a thick Rich [Music] pesta this looks just gorgeous see how it tastes one of the best condiments on Earth and it's not only delicious on crackers it's delicious on pasta on fish on Pizza you name it and what did that take less than 5 minutes to [Music] make I have a little pesto left over so I want to enjoy it as a quick snack on crackers I just love this we can put this in the refrigerator until Party Time on to the homemade hummus this is homemade parsley hummus so what I have here are chickpeas from a 15 oz can and I did drain the chickpeas and I've reserved the liquid from the can which is known as the aquafaba and going to pop this right into the food processor then I need three or four smashed and peeled garlic cloves smashed cloves are very easy to peel and just throw them into the food processor you can use as much garlic as you like or as much as you can stand a teaspoon of [Music] salt then I need the juice of one lemon then I need a small handful of parsley just roughly chop it the food processor we'll do the rest of the chopping then we want one scallion just roughly chopped [Music] 1/3 cup of tahini tahini is simply sesame seeds that have been ground into a smooth paste and it [Music] goes then I need a dash of smoked paprika and a tiny dash of cayenne pepper just for a little heat a tablespoon of extra virgin olive [Music] oil and about half of the liquid from the canned chickpeas I may add more of this [Music] later pop the lid on I'm going going to process this until a smooth hummus develops scrape down the balll I want to check this for both taste and texture so we're nice and thick this is delicious but it will be even more delicious if I add a little more tahini add a little more salt just a tiny pinch of salt clean spoon Perfection now we can decant this to a small [Music] bowl I like to make a little swirl in the top of the hummus add a drizzle of olive oil and a garnish of smoked paprika beautiful and delicious I love the little green specks from The Parsley cling film and then this can go into the refrigerator now for the first time in my life I'm going to make sheet pan quesadillas and the first thing I need is a diced onion this is half of an onion then I need some bell peppers these are the bell peppers that you and I cut up the other day and froze I just need to dice them then I need one lound of ground turkey so this filling is a ground turkey filling that I'm going to spice up and saute let me grab my electric skillet I love regular quesadillas that are made in a skillet on the stove top but when you're having a party it's great to have sheep pan quesadillas because they will feed a crowd a little oil this is avocado oil now we can saute the vegetables just until they soften that will take about 4 minutes this smells just wonderful I love the sights the smells and the sounds of cooking the veggies have softened so I will transfer them into a little bowl now we can Brown and cook the ground turkey this is lean ground turkey let's season up this turkey to the ground meat I'm adding a half teaspoon of salt plus one teaspoon each of garlic powder ground cumin and paprika [Music] for a touch of heat I'm adding a tiny pinch of cayenne pepper this was extraordinarily lean ground turkey there's virtually no fat in this Skillet certainly no grease I'm going to let this cool to while we assemble the tortillas so the recipe I'm following calls for eight burrito siiz tortillas so that's what I have here it also says to brush the sheet pan with melted butter but that doesn't sound very Mexican to me so I'm going to use oil yeah when I make regular quesadillas I never use melted butter I always use avocado oil or olive oil the oil is to help the quesadillas to Brown in the oven going to put some of this avocado oil in a little bowl because I will want to brush the top of the tortillas so I need a tortilla at each end and you want the tortillas to be half on and half off the sheet pan [Music] so I have six tortillas on the outside and then I place one tortilla in the center to cover this [Music] opening spread this out okay so this is called a Mexican [Music] blend I'm using a lot of cheese I think the recipe called for one cup I have probably doubled that then we need the peppers [Music] then fold the overhang over the [Music] filling so the recipe I'm following said to add an eighth tortilla in the center here but I don't see why so I'm not going to add that eighth tortilla but I do want to brush the tops with oil spoiler alert the sheet pan quesadilla turned out remarkably well everyone loved it I will make this easy party appetizer again and again then Place Another baking sheet on top and by the way my baking sheets are 13 in across and 18 in lengthwise so they are called half baking sheets I'm not going to bake this off until shortly before my guests arrive so I will pop this into the refrigerator meantime let's head outside I'd like to create a centerpiece or a side piece for the appetizer table and I want to use flowers that I have outside right now [Music] good news my friends the HED trimming crew is coming tomorrow to shear and shape my boxwood the shrubs are in dire need of a haircut I will show you the before and after in the next video [Music] [Music] [Music] as most of you already know I typically buy flowers from the local flower shop but today since it's May and I have flowers in the garden I thought I would give this a try I have no idea how the arrangement is going to work out and I'm going to make the arrangement in this little little pedestal bowl and we are going to start with Foxwood [Music] I think this totally free Arrangement looks pretty nice but I will let you be the judge when it comes to flower arrangements I haven't a clue by the way the Giant alium in this Arrangement has a very sweet fragrance you'd never know that this flow was related to The Onion oh my guests are due here shortly sadly they do not wish to appear on camera and that is a request that I must honor I'm going to pop the sheet pan quesadilla into the oven the oven has preheated to 425° F or 220° C I'm going to bake for 20 minutes with this sheet pan on top of the other sheet pan and then I will remove the sheet pan and bake for an additional 5 minutes [Music] I have some cilantro here that we can use as a flavorful garnish for the quesadillas I'm serving a simple crudity to accompany the hummus I will serve an assortment of crackers with the chive pesto and I will add small ramkin of guacamole and sour cream to the quesadilla board for [Music] [Music] well these baked quesadillas look a little different from the regular quadas but they did crisp up nicely I need to leave the these gloves on cuz I want to transfer this to my cutting board you could cut this into any shape you want I think I will make little squares or rectangles [Music] the tortillas crisped up beautifully and of course the filling is absolutely wonderful that ground turkey and the Mexican blend of cheese the spices I think this is pretty good let's bring our feast and fluet out to the garden [Music] and everyone enjoyed this little Feast that honestly was no trouble to put together thank you for spending time with me today I hope you feel inspired to try some or all of these make aead party appetizers to see more recipes and entertaining ideas be sure to like comment and subscribe I look forward to seeing you in the next episode have a great week my friends [Music]