Three VERY Easy and DELICIOUS Party Appetizers for Christmas or Anytime!

Hello, dear friends. I am so happy to see you again. Today is Friday, November 6th, which means we are at the start of the holiday season. I actually have some friends coming by on Sunday for the cocktail hour. So I'm going to make three make ahead cocktail appetizers. We're doing cocktail meatballs and bacon swizzle sticks. And something called cranberry brie bites. They're little puff pastry appetizers. And we're going to start with the cocktail meatballs. For these, I need two large eggs. And the recipe I'm following is from a website called Once Upon a Chef. And I will link that recipe in the description box below. Give these a whisk. Then I need some heavy cream. You could use milk here. Another little whisk, then I have three slices of bread that I need to cut into cubes. This is just ordinary white sandwich bread. I love having friends over for the cocktail hour. Gives me a chance to make very simple appetizers and there's very little cleanup afterwards. And that was my oven telling me that it has achieved 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Now I can put the bread. Into the egg and cream mixture. I'm going to use a fork to mash the bread into the cream. So you want soggy bread here. Okay, and then we can set this aside and gather the ingredients for the meatballs themselves. And I'm going to use my standing mixer to mix all of the ingredients for the meatballs. And let's see, the first thing we need is ground pork. In you go. Then I need garlic. This is one of the garlic pucks from my homegrown garlic, previously frozen. Then I need pepper, salt, and an unusual ingredient, baking powder. I think the baking powder gives this meat mixture a little puff. The directions say to beat this mixture at high speed until it's smooth. Well that looks pretty smooth to me. So now we can add the Bread, cream, and egg mixture. Need my spatula. We want to beat the egg mixture in. Finally, we can beat in some ground beef. Now, this is one pound of the ground beef that you and I bought together at Costco the other day. I bought a 10-pound, it's called a chub, it's a long tube. So a 10-pound chub of ground beef, and then I froze it in one-pound portions. So this is one pound, right here. And I did let the beef thaw overnight. In you go. And I'm going to mix the beef in. We are good and mixed here. So now I need to form the meat into little balls and then bake them on a rack that is set atop of a baking tray. Then I'm going to spray my rack really well. Going to do this over the sink because I don't want the meatballs to stick to the rack. And I have my scoop here, but I suspect I will end up forming these meatballs by hand. Let's see how the scoop works. Well, these look really nice. So this is one of those cocktail appetizers that you can make days ahead of time. I will be making a beautiful sauce to accompany them, and both the sauce and the meatballs can be made ahead. And then Shortly before serving time, you can simply put the meatballs in the sauce and rewarm the sauce on the stove top. That's what I plan to do. And here are the meatballs which go into the oven until they are done. That will take about 25 minutes. While the meatballs are baking, we can make the sauce. All right, and for the sauce I need ketchup. This is a zero sugar added ketchup Because I think this sauce will be sweet enough because it has brown sugar in it. One cup there. Yes, I do. I'm going to put this into a large skillet. This is a savory, tangy, sweet sauce. Sweet, savory, and tangy sauce. Which is just what you would want for cocktail meatballs. Then I need, they say dark brown sugar. I only have light. So light brown sugar will simply have to do. We need a quarter cup of water, which I measured out earlier. Three tablespoons apple cider vinegar. One, two, three, that was exactly three tablespoons. One and a half tablespoons of Worcester or Worcestershire sauce. Two tablespoons finely minced shallot or shallot. I don't have so I'm simply going to add some onion powder. I used to have dried shallots but I guess I used them all up. And then we need garlic. Two small cloves. I'm going to add one of my garlic pucks. These are double bagged so that my whole freezer doesn't taste or smell of garlic. We need salt and black pepper. I'm going to stir this and then bring it to a boil on the stove top. And my sauce has bubbled here and it has turned quite thick so we can cut off the heat. And the meatballs are done and they look just perfect. They also smell terrific. And here is the sauce. Now, do I want to put the meatballs in the sauce, let everything cool and then put that in the refrigerator? I think so. But first I want to taste one of these meatballs. Super delicious. Very tender and very fragrant. And very hot. I'm going to go ahead and transfer the meatballs to the sauce. And that will be one less step I have to do on Sunday for the cocktail hour. The only thing I will have to do is put this on the stove top to reheat. And I'm going to have to wash this rack because I'm going to I'm going to knead it for the bacon swizzle sticks. Finish this meatball. Toss these about in the sauce. I will probably garnish these cocktail meatballs with parsley and then I will serve them on a platter and I will plunge a little cocktail fork into each one. And I think these will present very nicely. I want to have a little taste of the sauce. Oh my goodness, this is perfect. Garlic-y, tomato-y. Sweet, tangy, savory, wonderful. Good morning once again. It's Sunday and my guests are coming for drinks and nibbles at around four o'clock this afternoon. The cocktail meatballs that you and I made together on Friday are safely tucked in the refrigerator. All I have to do is warm them. So this morning I want to make the cranberry brie bites and the bacon swizzle sticks. I also want to arrange some flours. And for the cranberry brie bites I need puff pastry. This is just store-bought puff pastry. I have not made these cranberry brie bites. Before, so this will be a learning experience. I watched a video on how to make them and I will link that video in the description box below. To roll this out, just to remove creases, and then I need to cut this pastry into 16 squares. Since I have 16 squares and this mini muffin tin has 24 openings, I'm alternating The squares and I think every other opening. Now if these cranberry brie bites work out, I think I might make them for Christmas. We're doing a big Christmas party here on December 12th and I and my friend Michelle are going to make all of the party food. Actually, I won't be able to leave a space between each square. Now I need my brie. And while I cut up the brie, I'm going to pop my puff pastry into the freezer. It's become quite soft. Now these bites are pretty tiny, so I need very tiny cubes of brie to the refrigerator. Then I have a jar of Cape Cod cranberry sauce. I like this sauce because it has some whole berries in it. I do want to give this a little stir. Actually, I think I will put this in a little bowl. I also need one. beaten egg with which to brush the puff pastry so that it browns in the oven. Here is the nicely chilled puff pastry and my oven has preheated to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Pastry brush handy. And then into each of these little puff pastry squares placing a little cube of brie and I need a little tiny dollop of the cranberry sauce. You can make these cranberry brie bites days weeks or even months ahead of time. Just assemble and freeze them and then bake them off at party time. So now I want to brush the exposed part of the puff pastry with a small amount of the egg wash and I'm going to be careful not to brush any of the egg wash onto the muffin tin because then the Puff pastry might stick. And I did not grease this muffin tin. There's enough fat in puff pastry that it shouldn't stick. These appetizers are served at room temperature, so I'm going to go ahead and bake them off right now, about 20, maybe 25 minutes in the preheated oven. And while the cranberry brie bites are baking, I'm going to polish off this brie and clean up my workstation. I need some kind of platter to put these on. Let's see what we have in the serving pantry. I think this will be enough for our little gathering today. And of course, I want to try one of these for you. Mm, mm, mm. My friends, this is totally, totally delicious. Oh, I love the brie and the sweet cranberry. And I can tuck the remaining little bites on this plate for snacking. So my cocktail meatballs are done, my cranberry brie bites are done, but before we do the bacon swizzle sticks I need to grab some parsley from the berry farm and I want to arrange some flowers. Yesterday. So I picked up some flowers from a local flower store on Saturday and they had mostly What I would call fall colors, coppers and bronzes and browns. I'm a summer guy, so I always tend to select summer colors. So I have pink, yellow, and blue, and then a bunch of green. And there we have it, a pink, yellow, blue, and green arrangement for the cocktail table. And before we put it on the cocktail table, we can enjoy the flowers right over here. Going to get this cleaned up and then want to get started on the bacon swizzle sticks. I first had bacon swizzle sticks when they were made by a caterer we had hired for a party and these swizzle sticks were the first thing to disappear at that party. They are totally delicious. The swizzle sticks are Italian breadsticks also known as grissini and They are wrapped with bacon that has been dipped in a brown sugar and chili powder mixture. I'm not sure how many of these I'm going to make. Let's say I'm going to make a lot of them. First thing I need to do is cut this bacon in half. Then I need to wash my hands. My hands are clean. Now I want to mix brown sugar and chili powder. Not sure how much I'm going to need. This little mix with my hand. And my oven has preheated to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. So here's grissini. They're just thin breadsticks and they tend to be rather fragile. And if they are too fragile, I also have some other Italian breadsticks here. I have a baking tray lined with parchment and I have a rack set on top of the tray. Now you could try to wrap the entire length of the grissini with the bacon, It tends to break, so I'm going to go ahead and just break my Grissini right now. Then you take a strip of bacon, dredge it in the brown sugar mixture, and then wrap it barber pole style around the Grissini, just like that, and then place it on the rack. Try to do several at a time. All three of the appetizers we made for this cocktail party turned out beautifully. I hope you will give them a try someday. Now the brown sugar of course is going to caramelize in the oven which will make these bacon swizzle sticks extra delicious. Here are the bacon swizzle sticks and if you have any leftover brown sugar mixture just throw it right on top of each swizzle stick. I need to wash my hands again. We're all washed up here. Now if you'd like to take these Swizzle sticks over the top. You can drizzle them with some maple syrup. I think I'm going to do just that. This is maple syrup that I buy from Tierra Farm. It's locally produced maple syrup. Just a little drizzle on each bacon swizzle stick. Of course, the maple syrup will also caramelize in the oven. These go into the oven until the bacon is done. That can take anywhere from eight to 10 minutes. I will let you know when mine are done. I'm going to clean up and sterilize my workstation here. And then I need to figure out a cocktail. Oh, I wish you could smell my kitchen right now. These bacon swizzle sticks smell mighty appetizing. And I had them in the oven for 15 minutes at 400 degrees Fahrenheit. And now while they are still hot, I want to transfer them to a platter. Because if I wait too long, the caramelized coating will harden, and then it will be impossible for me to remove them from this rack. And as the swizzle sticks cool, the bacon will have a very special candy-like texture. How's that for a description? And I'm going to put some of these on a separate plate. And while we let these swizzle sticks cool, let me show you the cocktail I decided on. I will try one of these for you after they cool and Lisette is here. I want her to taste one. So I decided that since we are in the holiday season that we should serve eggnog, which I bought at my local supermarket. This is a really good golden eggnog. And I no longer have that big clear glass pitcher that you've seen because On Saturday night, Goldie apparently was having a good time. Goldie is my cat, one of my cats. And he got up into a cabinet, an upper cabinet in my serving pantry. And the cupboard doors where I have all of my pitchers were open. Goldie got up there. I don't know why, but he was trying to make room for himself. He knocked over my clear glass pitcher, he knocked over one of my blue water glasses, he knocked over a couple of martini glasses, and you should have seen the mess on the floor. I'm really glad he didn't cut himself, but I was very busy afterwards cleaning all of that up. Anyway, I'm in the market for another big clear glass pitcher, but I think for Today's little cocktail gathering, I will just pour the eggnog into this pitcher, and I will let people add bourbon if they choose. To enhance the perfume of the eggnog, I added freshly grated nutmeg to each serving. And now that these swizzle sticks have cooled for a quick minute, I do want a taste of one for you. And Lisette, will you have one? These are powerfully delicious, right? Mm-hmm. Oh my goodness. Mm, and they will get even delicious-er, there's no such word, as they cool further. Oh, yum, yum, yum. Savoring sweet. I'm not ready to serve yet, so I'm going to put the eggnog back into the refrigerator. And I do want to bring in firewood, light a fire. Plus, I need to warm up the cocktail meatballs. Now, I do need to chop up some of the parsley that we just bought from the berry farm. Because I want to use it as a garnish for the cocktail meatballs. I do have parsley from my garden that you and I dried together and put in jars. But I really want to use fresh parsley for the meatballs. I've heated up the cocktail meatballs that you and I made together on Friday. Now I'm going to skewer each one, put it on this platter. And then I can put the platter In a 200 degree fahrenheit oven just to keep the meatballs warm. It looks like I will have some surplus meatballs. I'm going to keep this platter warm in the 200 degree fahrenheit oven and I'm going to change into something a little more presentable. So my friends just texted. They are around the corner. They will be here in one minute. Before they arrive, I wanted to thank you for being here with me on Friday and today as we put together this very simple but very delicious cocktail party. Again, I will post all of the recipes in the description box below, and to see the full description, you simply click on the title of the video. In the next episode, I think we will either... Well, there are many things I need to do. I need to plant garlic before the snow falls, and Lisette told me snow is expected on Friday. Can you believe that? I also need to organize my freezer. And, I want to go thrifting for vintage Christmas decor, so probably we'll be doing all three of those things in the next few videos. And until then, please treat yourself very, very well. I can't wait to see you again. Bye for now, friends. I'm going to have a sip of my eggnog. This is the taste of the holiday season. Bye for now.