APPETIZER RECIPES APPETIZERS FOR PARTIES

Well we have definitely entered into kind of the appetizer and snack season with football in full swing and then we also have Halloween coming up. A lot of people doing harvest parties. It's nice to have some fun appetizers that you can serve and just like wow your friends with. I'm sharing three recipes that are spectacular. I think you're really going to enjoy these. And if we haven't met before my name is Ange. Welcome and this is the Men U Make Kitchen. Okay this was really tough for me to decide which recipe I wanted to share first with you because they're all three so so good. But I had to go with this one because it's definitely a little bit unique. These are Irish nachos. If you've never had Irish nachos they're basically a sliced potato and then you top them with like bacon and cheese. But I'm doing potato chips for this recipe. These are so good and they're really easy to make and everyone will go nuts for them. Okay so for our Irish nachos I have a nice wide dish here. You can also use a sheet pan. So we're going to be doing like the easier version of Irish nachos. If you've ever had those before they're traditional ones. It's made with real potato slices but we are going to be doing some kettle potato chips which I think will be so fun. I've never had them this way before. So I'm going to add half of this bag to my greased dish because we're going to be layering the ingredients. That looks about right. Okay and then we're going to add roughly probably not quite a one cup of cheese to the top here. Actually this is probably about a half a cup. So half a cup of cheese goes down. You don't you don't want them drowning in cheese. And then I've got some bacon pieces. I just cooked six slices of bacon on the stove until it was crispy and then let them drain on a paper towel to kind of remove some of the grease. So I'm going to add about half of the bacon down. Okay and then we're going to add the rest of the bag to the top here and this is an eight ounce bag of kettle chips. So I did contemplate on getting like the jalapeno ones or maybe you know they have like the habanero elbows. Those would be like so fiery spicy and I'm such a wuss. Then we're going to add some more cheese. I think I grated way too much cheese and I'm doing Colby Jack as you can see here but you can do any kind of cheese you love. A good melting cheese. And then of course we got to add some more bacon and the bacon will just melt in with the cheese. It'll be perfect. I'm going to save a few pieces of bacon for the top just to um because you know I got to take my pretty photos. And then I'm going to do some fresh jalapeno slices and I want to put these in the oven with the cheese so that it can kind of melt in there a little bit. These are not going to go into the oven very long so the jalapenos won't have a chance to fully cook but they'll kind of soften a little bit which I think it'll be good. And then we can always add like some fresh ones to the top too. All right maybe one more slice there. That looks pretty good. Okay tell me this already does not look so yummy. I could just dive right in. But we got to pop it in the oven. So I have the oven set at 350 and we're going to bake this just for like five maybe eight minutes until the cheese is all melted and gooey. And then we'll pull it out of the oven and finish up with our toppings. Check these out. Oh my gosh they look so good and they smell delicious. So we're going to do some basic toppings. I'm going to throw on a few little tomato chunks pieces whatever chopped up tomato. I'm not going to do too much because I don't want to make the chips soggy quickly. Um that's one thing about these particular nachos is you kind of want to eat them right away fresh out of the oven. Otherwise they will get a little bit soft or soggy from the topping. And then you can definitely serve your sour cream on the side but I'm just going to put a little dollop right in the center. And then that way if not everyone likes sour cream you can just avoid the center. Okay that looks good. And then we're going to do some chives or you can do some green onions. I actually have these chives in my garden that need to get used up before winter sets in so. And that is it. I am so excited to try these. These are definitely ready to taste. All right check that out. I don't think that these are actually meant to be transferred onto a plate. That was quite the adventure trying to get these all on here without destroying my nachos. Okay I just have to say these were so easy to make. You saw that. So perfect for any kind of party or game day and everyone loves nachos but these are just so fun. Like I can just already tell they're going to be delicious. All right here we go. Check that out. Yum. Guys this is going to be your new fun appetizer to make when you have people over or if you just want a fun thing to make on a Friday night. These are fantastic. They're super cheesy. They're still very crunchy. I love that little bit of jalapeno on there. It just gives it a little bit of that pepper flavor and of course bacon. You know I am really excited to have these in my recipe box to refer back to when we have some kind of a fun party night. They're so delicious. I mean they are so so delicious. You're going to love these. So for our buffalo chicken taquitos I'm going to go ahead and mix all of my cheeses and the sauce together and then we'll add our chicken. So I have four ounces of really softened cream cheese. I actually put this in the microwave to make sure that it was good and creamy. Then we're going to add a quarter cup of ranch dressing and it can be a bottled or homemade whatever kind of prepared ranch dressing you want to put in here. And then we're going to add our buffalo sauce. This is Frank's original and I'm doing a third cup. You can definitely add more or less just depending on your spice level. I'm going to taste it and I might add more just depending on you know whether or not it burns off my face. I'm also going to add in a quarter teaspoon of garlic powder. Okay and we're just going to mix all of this together first. I kind of adjusted my camera a little bit so you could see down in here. And you can see the cream cheese is like butter like almost like really softened butter and that's exactly how you want it. So if you have to nuke it in the microwave that's okay. Okay this looks good. It's still going to be a little bit chunky but don't worry about that. So let me grab my chicken and then we're going to add in our chicken. I have three cups of shredded chicken and then I also chopped it really well after I shredded it just because I didn't want any big chunks of chicken in the taquitos. And then I also have one cup of Monterey Jack cheese. I'm going to add just a little pinch of salt. I'm not going to even use all that but just a little bit and I can always season it more. Okay and then all this gets mixed together. It smells so yummy. I feel like I could just grab like some crackers and dip it in this and it would be really yummy. We're going to make a really delicious and simple kind of ranch blue cheese dipping sauce that I think will be really good. Okay I'm going to grab my tortillas and we are going to get our filling in there and start getting these bad boys in the oven. Okay so I have my flour tortillas and I'm using the fajita size tortillas. I feel like they're the perfect size for taquitos. So we're going to take our small cookie scoop and I think I'm just going to do like one big scoop and then you want to put it down the center of like not completely on the edge of the tortilla but on the third part of the tortilla if that makes sense. You can put it down the center but then you'll end up kind of wrapping the tortilla up in itself. Maybe just a little bit more. Definitely want there to be enough in there. Okay that looks good and I'll turn it this way and then we're just going to basically roll it up just like that. Cute little taquito. So we'll do one more here. Good scoop. I can't remember if I said I'm really hoping to get about 15 taquitos out of this mixture. Roll it on up. Super easy. All right so I'm going to get the rest of these filled and rolled up and then we'll talk about oven temperatures and baking times and all that stuff. Okay we got all of our taquitos rolled up and I'm going to add a little bit of olive oil to the bottom of my sheet pan because I want to make sure these get nice and crispy. Start with just a little bit more maybe like a tablespoon. And I've got my little brush here or you can use like a like a paper towel to kind of smear it around. So definitely want to grease the bottom of your pan. You can put down some parchment paper and do it that way but I didn't want the paper sliding all over the place so and I'm afraid with foil I just don't want anything to stick. So these pans are great for and because they're a lot newer they don't stick like the food doesn't stick to them very easily. Okay that looks good and then we're going to place our taquitos seam side down on the sheet pan and you want to make sure that they're not touching. They can be really close but you don't want them hugged up against each other like if you were making enchiladas or something like that. That way they crisp up on all sides. I think we'll be able to fit all of these on here. Okay I'm going to tray this shorter one out for that longer one so it fits in here a little bit better. Okay those are kind of touching but that's okay. And then I have some olive oil in a little cup here and I'm just going to brush the tops of the tortilla with just a little bit of oil. You can also use like a non-stick cooking spray for this but I feel like the olive oil will get them nice and crispy. Okay and then the last thing I'm going to do, turn the sheet pan this way, I'm going to add just a little bit of salt to the top of each tortilla just to make sure that it has plenty of seasoning and saltiness and then I'm going to sprinkle a little bit of paprika over the top of each tortilla as well. You could also do like chili powder or you could do like smoked paprika that would be really yummy. We're just going to do good old-fashioned paprika. We get to pop these in the oven. I have it set at 425 and we're going to bake them about 25 to 30 minutes. Really you just want to make sure that they are nice and crispy on the outside and of course the inside will be nice and heated through. And while that happens we're going to make a really simple ranch blue cheese dip. So for our ranch blue cheese I'm going to be using pretty much like a heaping half cup of sour cream and I'm using full fat sour cream and then I have about two teaspoons of ranch seasoning mix. It doesn't want to come off there and then I also have some buttermilk. I'm really going to add a buttermilk to the consistency that I want it so you can have this as thick or as thin as you would like it. So I'm going to start with like a couple of tablespoons of buttermilk. We'll stir it and kind of look and see how we feel about it. So I'll give this a mix first before we add in our blue cheese and listen if you do not like blue cheese if that is just not your jam just leave it out or buy a bottle of ranch dressing or make some ranch dip. So it's still going to be absolutely delicious without the blue cheese but I love blue cheese and I think it's going to be really yummy and I'm not adding a ton so just a little hint of kind of that sharper cheesier flavor. I really like the consistency of that. I feel like that's a good like taquito dipping sauce you know. All right so I'm going to add in a quarter cup of crumbled blue cheese and I'm using the Lighthouse center cut. I really like this. It's super creamy. It's not really strong. It's delicious. We'll give that a stir and you know when your dip has a chance to set because we'll put this in our refrigerator while our taquitos are baking it'll probably thicken up a little bit more so I may add more buttermilk. It just kind of depends on how I feel. Let me give this a little taste. Oh wow that is so yummy. This would be delicious over like a Cobb salad. So good. Okay I'm going to put this in the refrigerator. We're going to wait for our taquitos to bake and then we get to dive into them. Check these out. This looks so yummy. So when we're talking about like appetizers or snack this is what I live for. Like this is what I would gravitate towards if somebody was serving this at some kind of a party or game night a football game. They're definitely like a heartier kind of appetizer but look how crispy those have gotten. So I topped it with a little bit of green onion just to make it look pretty and then I've got my blue cheese sauce. All right we're going in. Okay did you see that piece of chicken fall? I'm telling you every single time I drop something. Every time I do a video I drop something on the floor. Oh my gosh. Talk about and the spice is like perfect for me. Get a little bit of heat but it's not crazy. So it's perfect for having a party if there's going to be kiddos. You don't want anything crazy spicy or you could even serve some buffalo sauce on the side if people want to add more. These are fantastic and you saw how easy they were to put together. They make quite a bit so it's great for a crowd. So so yummy. So for our sloppy joe sliders I have a large pan here. I've heated to medium heat and I'm going to add one pound of lean ground beef and I'm going to cook this and crumble it until it's no longer pink and then we'll add in a few other ingredients. Okay this is looking good. Most of this is cooked all the way through. There's still just a teensy bit of pink but that's okay. So we're going to add in I've got a half a cup of chopped up yellow onion and I have two garlic cloves minced. So the ingredients that I'm using for this sloppy joe recipe is very similar to the one on my website only I leave out a few things excuse me like the kidney beans and I don't do the pickled jalapenos. There's a couple other items in there that I eliminated just because I want this to be a quick and easy kind of party snack food. I mean my sloppy joe's recipe is actually very easy but I don't need the beans and all that stuff anyway. So we're going to cook the onions and garlic just for a few minutes and then basically we're just going to dump in all the rest of the ingredients. So now for like our real seasonings I'm going to add in one and a half cups of tomato sauce. I've got one tablespoon of rice wine vinegar and or I'm sorry I've got one tablespoon of red wine vinegar and one tablespoon of Worcestershire. I have two tablespoons of tomato paste. I also have one tablespoon of molasses and you're probably wondering like why did you put it in these little bowls? Well I have to take photos from my website and so um for the ingredients list so that's why. I've got one and a half teaspoons of yellow mustard. You could also do Dijon mustard that would be good for a little change. And then I have one teaspoon of salt and one teaspoon of black pepper. I almost forgot I also have a quarter cup of water. So at this point we want the sauce to get nice and thick. We don't want it to be runny. There's my oven it's ready. We don't want it to be runny once we put it on our buns. So this is going to cook down for a few minutes. I'll bring it back to kind of a low simmer and it'll take about five minutes before this mixture gets nice and thick. All right so for our simple glaze ingredients we have a quarter cup of melted butter and this is going to get brushed over the top of the buns before it goes into the oven. I also have one tablespoon of brown sugar and then I've got a half a teaspoon of Worcestershire and a half a teaspoon of Dijon mustard. And that is it. And then I also have for the top I'm going to do everything but the bagel seasoning. Just a little sprinkling. I thought that would be kind of fun instead of using sesame seeds or poppy seeds. Just to like give it even more flavor. We're just waiting for our ground meat mixture to thicken. It's almost done and then we get to start building our sliders. All right our meat mixture is nice and thick and ready to go. So I'm going to be using just these classic dinner rolls. You can also do the Hawaiian rolls. I love the Hawaiian rolls but I feel like because sloppy joes have a lot of sweetness and then also the glaze has sweetness I didn't want the buns to be super sweet too. So super important though you want to make sure to leave it in one large piece like this and I'm going to take my serrated knife and I'm just going to work my way down the center of the bun and create two halves. Okay now that I have my two halves so I'm actually going to put that bottom side in my 9 by 13 inch baking dish. You don't even need to grease the pan and then I'm going to be adding one cup of shredded cheddar cheese. You can also do sliced cheese you can do any kind of cheese you want to do but you definitely want these good and cheesy. That looks pretty good. Okay and then we're going to add our meat mixture which as you can see it's nice and thick. Okay so we'll spread this out. I know it looks like a lot of meat but once everything kind of bakes down it'll be perfect. Not to mention it's sloppy joes right so it's got to kind of ooze out from the sides. Ooze, is that the right word? It's got to kind of drip out, fall out. I'm not very good at coming up with fancy words to describe what I'm talking about but you know what I mean hopefully. All right and you know what we're going to do we're going to add the rest of our cheese another about another cup over the top of the meat and thank the lord I grated more than I was supposed to or shredded more than I was supposed to because that is not enough cheese. Get my little trusty bag out I have in the fridge. So yummy. You know what would be really good is to top this with some fresh jalapeno slices and then put the lid on but that might be kind of scary if you're serving children. You don't want there to be any surprises. Okay now we're gonna pop the lid on. I want to make sure that these are the right got that on the right side. I think I do. Give it a little kind of smushy smush and then we got to brush our glaze on. So I've got okay clearly I need to put that back in the microwave that hardened up a little bit. Hang on one sec. Okay I think I got this all melted up and mixed in. So now we're just going to brush all of this yummy buttery stuff over the top of our rolls or you could just pour it but we're just going to brush it. It smells so good that little bit of Worcestershire and Dijon mustard together. I love that combination. Salty and savory at the same time. And then I'm going to take some of my everything but the bagel seasoning and just do a little just a teensy little topping. I don't want like a ton of everything bagel flavor like we're just we're going more for looks actually. But I thought it would be better than just sesame seeds. So cute. I love it. Okay we're going to pop this in the oven. I have it set at 350 and we're going to bake these bad boys for like 18 to 20 minutes. You want the tops to be kind of crusty a little bit. Every all the cheese is going to melt and it's just going to be amazing. So we're going to do that and then we get to taste them. Okay we are ready to try these. Okay first of all do you see those little like cheese crisps? That's where it got kind of crusty on the bottom and these little pieces they're like the best little cheesy crunchy chips. So good. Okay you know what's so great about these is because it bakes in the oven even though it's Sloppy Joe's it holds together really well. I mean I'm sure once I bite into this it's going to be all over the place. Yeah but how cool like so easy to serve. Okay we're going in except I feel like I'm eating it upside down. Let's go this way with it. All right I already love like the Sloppy Joe filling. I have it on my website it's called the best Sloppy Joe's because the filling is so delicious and even though I didn't use everything from those ingredients the flavor of the Sloppy Joe part delicious but this is probably the best Sloppy Joe's I've ever had and I would make these on any weeknight but for a fun game day or party night oh my word your guests are gonna look for these. This is an outstanding slider so so delicious. Why do I keep putting it upside down? And the bagel everything but the bagel seasoning I taste it a little bit and I love it. I'm so glad that I added that it really just gives the top a little pop of flavor with that buttery crunchiness and the buns are not soggy. These have been sitting in a pan for probably more than 20 minutes and the bun part of it is just as soft and oh man I just can't even say enough about these. These are so delicious. Well I hope you were inspired by some of these fun appetizers and snacks. I know that I want to go back and make all of them. They were just so so good. Don't forget all the recipe links can be found in the descriptions and if you're new here I'd love for you to be part of my YouTube family so make sure to subscribe. I hope you have a really blessed week and we will see you next time.