Everyone loves a holiday get-together, but what to cook? In this episode from 2004, Arlene has some fun ideas for finger foods, including very hot buffalo wings, quick quiches, cheese dollars, and more!
Do you have a favorite one? It seems like anything with cheese is always a winner. Don’t forget, it’s always nice to have a veggie tray and a fruit tray, so if some of our guests are on a restricted diet, they can still enjoy the party!
Pickle Roll-Ups
These appetizers are fast to make and work great for parties all year round.
Ingredients
- Large flour tortillas
- whole dill and sweet pickles
- 1 package cream cheese (8oz)
- 1/2 package dry ranch dressing mix
- 1/2 pound deli ham, sliced
- 1/2 pound deli salami, sliced
Instructions
- Mix cream cheese and ranch dressing together. Spread on burrito shells.
- Cover with 1 layer of ham or salami (Use ham and sweet pickles together and salami and dill pickles together).
- Place pickles in line (quantity depends on how big your pickles are) and roll up like a jellyroll. Wrap in plastic wrap or aluminum foil and chill in refrigerator about 20 minutes or longer.
- Remove wrapping and slice about 1 to 2-inches thick and serve as an appetizer. Makes lots. Enjoy!
Quick Quiches
These work great for a brunch, a party appetizer, or just as an elegant snack.
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp butter
- 1/2 cup diced onion
- 1/3 cup diced green pepper
- 8 eggs
- 16 buttery crackers, crushed
- 1 can sliced mushrooms (small can, 4oz)
- 8 oz shredded cheddar cheese
- salt and pepper (to taste)
- cooking spray
Instructions
- Preheat over to 350 degrees. In a skillet over medium heat, saute onion and green pepper in butter until tender. In a bowl, beat eggs, then add cracker crumbs, shredded cheese, mushrooms, sauteed vegetables, meat, salt, and pepper. Mix thoroughly.
- Spray small muffin tins very well with cooking spray. Fill tins to top with egg mixture. Bake in preheated oven for 25 minutes. Makes 48 to 50 tarts. Enjoy!
Very Hot Buffalo Wings
These are HOT! Feel free to use less hot sauce for milder wings.
Ingredients
- 3 pounds chicken wings, cut into 3rds with tips discarded
- 1 bottle Louisiana style hot sauce (approx 6 oz)
- 1/2 cup melted butter
- 1/4 cup lemon juice
- 2 packages dry Italian dressing mix
- 1 tbsp dried basil
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Place wings in single layer on sided baking sheet. Bake until browned about 25 to 30 minutes.
- While wings are baking, combine rest of ingredients in a bowl. After wings are done, drain all drippings from pan and carefully dip each wing into the sauce mixture and place back into pan.
- Bake again for about 25 minutes at 450 degrees. Remove from oven and let cool just enough to eat. These may be served with ranch dressing and celery sticks. The longer these wings sit after cooking, the hotter they will become. Enjoy!
Southern Cheese Balls
For those who don't have a sweet tooth, these cheesy treats are irresistible.
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter, softened
- 2 1/2 cups flour
- 2 cups grated sharp cheddar cheese
- 1 cup chopped walnuts
- 2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a bowl, mix all ingreidents well and form into small balls about 3/4-inch in diameter. Place on a baking sheet and flatten slightly with tines of a fork.
- Bake in preheated oven for 15-minutes. Transfer to paper towels to cool. Makes 15 to 20 servings as a par1y snack. Enjoy!
Party Rye Cuke Sandwiches
Fast, easy, and elegant, these are a refreshing addition to a party table.
Ingredients
- 1 loaf rye cocktail bread, sliced
- 2 cucumbers, sliced thin
- mayonnaise
- lemon pepper seasoning
Instructions
- Spread each slice of party rye bread with mayonnaise. Place two slices of cucumber on top of mayonnaise. Sprinkle with lemon pepper. Place on platter and refrigerate until serving. Makes lots. Enjoy!
Dill Dip for Veggies
This is fast, easy, and tastes fresher than store-bought dip.
Ingredients
- 1 tsp dry salad dressing mix
- 1 tbsp parsley flakes
- 1 tsp dry dill weed
- 1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
- 1 tsp Ac'cent seasoning (MSG)
- 1 tbsp minced dry onion
- 1 cup sour cream
- 1 cup mayonnaise
- assorted veggies for dipping
Ginger Lime Dip
This uniquely flavored dip goes great with all kinds of fruit!
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup mayonnaise or salad dressing spread
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 2 tsp grated lime peel
- 1 tbsp lime juice
- 1 tbsp honey
- 1/2 tsp ground ginger
- assorted fresh fruit for dipping
Instructions
- In a bowl, combine all ingredients well, cover and chill. To serve, place bowl of dip in center of platter and mound fresh fruit around it. Enjoy!
Potatoes Extraordinaire
Each one of these is like a potato salad in a bite!
Ingredients
- 25 small red new potatoes
- 1 pint sour cream
- bacon bits, chives, blue cheese, caviar, or any other topping you like
Instructions
- In a large pan, cover potatoes with water and boil gently until JUST tender. Drain and let cool until able to handle easily.
- Cut each potato in half (east to west) and carefully scoop out the pulp, leaving 1/4-inch of potato in the skin. Fill with sour cream. Top with suggested toppings and place on serving platter. Can be served warm or cold. Makes 50 potatoes. Enjoy!
Transcript
- Hello, and welcome to At Home today. We’re in the middle of the Christmas preparation season, and I hope that your shopping’s done, hope the cards are all addressed. I hope the gifts are all wrapped. Too much to ask for, huh? Baking done, maybe? We gave you some ideas the last couple weeks. Today we’re gonna show you how to throw a really nice party, just with finger foods. Like appetizers, hors d’oeuvres, that kind of stuff. And just to kind of, a time when people just come in and relax and they pick up some stuff and they nibble and you know, they don’t have to stay for hours and hours. You do this in a little block of time, like on a Sunday afternoon or one evening. It’s great. Pace yourself. Get your, by now, I hope you have some of those things that I mentioned done, because we are in the next few days, it’s gonna be Christmas day and next week, we’re gonna be bringing you an entire Christmas dinner. So you’ll want to be sure to watch for that. Our folks, our dear friends at Jordan Banana Company, been with us for years and just dear friends of mine personally, love every one of them. Fred, Mr. Jordan, first of all, and Fred and Doug and Pat and all of them there, they’re just a great group, family business. And you get that individual attention. Well, I wanna show what they do. You know, they provide produce and grocery for us all year long. And we thank them for this hundreds of dollars, but look at the fruit baskets that you can get just by calling them. And then you can order, in the Pittsburgh area, they will deliver. And it’s 412-469-1007. All different price ranges. They’ll work with you. They’ll make specialty gourmet baskets, fruit baskets, whatever. You know what? If this is a great idea for a gift, you don’t have to wrap it. You don’t have to deliver it. They’ll do it all for you. You can call them on the phone and get a lot of your gift giving ideas from them. They’ll be glad to help you. And I’m gonna help you today because we’re gonna go to the hint. And we come back, we’re getting started with all kinds of appetizers, hors d’oeuvres and finger foods. Stay with us, but here’s today’s At Home Hint. Here’s today’s At Home Hint. Never purchase a can or jar if there is any sign of damage or a bulge. When you open a can or jar, always smell the contents to see if there is any off odor and check the top for mold. If moldy, discard immediately. If you’ve got a helpful hint you’d like to share with us, we want to hear from you. Send your hint to At Home Hints, Cornerstone TeleVision, Wall, Pennsylvania, 1548-1499. Well, the first and delicious finger food we’re gonna do, you know, you can never go wrong by doing hot wings. Everybody likes hot wings, especially guys. So what I’ve done here, we’ve baked our, I’ve taken my three pound of wings, disjointed them, threw the tips away, and just kept the other sections, put them on, baked them in a 450 degree oven for 25 minutes. Brought them out, took all the juices off. Leave the goodies on there, but took the juices off. Now I have just taken a whole bottle of hot sauce, a whole bottle of hot sauce. You see this? This awesome. Okay. Put it into a bowl. Now I’m gonna add two packages of the dry good seasons Italian dressing mix. Two packages. And here we have some tablespoon of dried basil. We have a fourth of a cup of lemon juice. That’s gonna add some real dimension of flavor. And next to it, some melted butter. Now all you’re gonna do, blend this really well, like this, okay? Now obviously, if your guys or your family doesn’t like really hot stuff, go with half a bottle. Don’t put the whole bottle in. I know this crowd that I work with, and I know that probably I could do with two bottles, but we held back and restraint. Now, all you do is take each one that’s already cooked a while. And just we’re gonna dip that and put it back on, because these are gonna go back into the oven for another 25 minutes at 450 degrees, and then you’ll bring them out and they’ll be ready to go. Simple, easy to do. Get your wings and you wanna make sure that there’s no pieces of hair or whatever, still on them when you get them. Get them fresh. Don’t buy the frozen ones, get them nice and fresh. And you know what? If you really want to make them good, go to a chicken place where they have fresh chicken, they sell fresh chicken. That stuff, you say, oh, that’s a pain. I have to go on the other side of town. But I’ll tell you what, the taste that you’re gonna get, the flavor and the delicious oohs and ahs that everybody’s gonna be telling you, wow, this is really good. It’s worth a trip over there. Now, you don’t wanna do anything with this if you have extra leftover, because remember, you’re putting chicken in there and you don’t wanna use it for anything else, unless you use it for more chicken. So I would suggest that you don’t try to keep that for anything other use, except for the chicken. Now I’m gonna have one of the kitchen helpers come in and finish these ’cause I wanna get onto something else for you. Linda, could you give me a hand? Okay, there you go. All right, next what we’re gonna do is, little mini quiches. And I know you can buy them, but you know what, why do that if you can make them and make them more inexpensive than what you have to pay for them, when you get them already made up. This is so simple. We have eight eggs and we have them in. I did it specifically in this nice big mixing bowl that has a lip because we’re not gonna take the time to spoon. We’re gonna pour them in. And that’s a plus when you’re in a hurry and you wanna get this stuff done. Okay, so, what we’ve done, taking a tablespoon of butter, and we browned, put this in with our onion and some green pepper, and then you wanna let that cool. And when it cools, then you’re gonna add that right to your eggs. Okay? If you don’t have green pepper, put some tops of green onion, some chives, whatever, that will be fine. Okay, just like that. You don’t want them to get real brown. You just want them to get transparent so that they have cooked pretty well for you, okay? And you wanna mix that up. Next to that, we’re gonna take 16 rich crackers and we put them, crumble them up, you know with a, take your plastic bag and your rolling pin and just mix them together. See, this is coming together to a really nice consistency. Now, small can of mushrooms we’ve drained really well. That goes in next. And get out here you, okay? And then we’re gonna add a small can of chicken, cooked chicken that you get in little cans like tuna. We’re gonna add, it’s a seven ounce can. We’re gonna add that. You could add ham or the chicken. We decide to do this with chicken. It’s a little bit more than I need. And then, we also are gonna do about a cup of shredded cheddar cheese. And you’re gonna see that this is really thick. Mix that together really well. This is gonna go into our little mini quiche pans, okay? And this is gonna go into a 350 degree oven. So, let me see here, get this out. I’ll tell you, this is the time of the year, so much going on, so much preparation. And you wanna try to pace yourself so that you’re not doing everything all at one time. And you’re thinking, how am I gonna get this all done? You’ll get it done. Anything you can make ahead, that’s what you need to do. Make whatever you can ahead. And we’re just gonna pour this. This is gonna make 48 to 50 mini quiches. And once you get them baked, you could even freeze them and then serve them later, okay? So here we are. I’m gonna ask Linda, you wanna come back and help me pour? Because we have so much to show you today. I wanna give you some, a lot of good ideas. So instead of you get the idea, right? She’ll put those in there. Thanks Linda. Okay, the next one we’re gonna do, this is called cheese dollars. These are like a little cracker, but they’re real cheesy. And when you’re baking these, oh, it smells so good in the house. You’re gonna like this. Okay, first of all, we’re going to combine a half a pound of sharp cheese graded. Cheese is one of the staples. Let’s face it for a lot of hors d’oeuvres, and a lot of the things we make for the holidays, because everybody seems to like cheese. Most people do if they don’t have a problem with it, dairy wise. And then we have some of our softened butter, let see here. Okay, there we go. And what you believe, one cup of rice, crispy cereal goes in there unusual and some cayenne pepper is a teaspoon of cayenne. You can take that down or take it up whichever. I’m just gonna do some sprinkling like that. That’s probably be about a half a teaspoon and then a teaspoon of salt, which is a good pinch. And I’m gonna mix that together a little bit. This is gonna make a dough. What you’re gonna do with the dough once this gets blended together, you’re gonna put it on a piece of wax paper and make it into a log and roll it into a log and then put the refrigerator and let it get refrigerated good and cold so that when the butter gels up in that and gets firm, then you’re gonna slice it down and bake them off. And you know what? They’re wonderful. We made some ahead of time, ’cause we wanted to make sure that what we were telling you was exactly the way we wanted it to work and it does, it works great. And they would be great to explain how we’re gonna do them today. Or you could use them as a basis to put anything else on that. If you wanted to use ’em for a dip or whatever, they’d be great, okay? So I’m gonna go ahead and add my two cups of flour. Okay. How we doing Lynn?
- [Lynn] Okay.
- You’re doing good, okay. Yeah, be sure to spray your pans, which I didn’t, but I’m glad I started in that nonstick pan, but you wanna be sure to spray them before you use them. ’cause that would be good, okay? I’m gonna get this in the refrigerator and we come back, we got a whole lot more. Stay with us with appetizers and hors d’oeuvre for your party for this holiday season. Well we’re glad you’re back in the kitchen. I’m gonna show you what to do with that wonderful cheese dollar dough that we made. This is a piece, we baked the rest of them. This is what it’s gonna look like when it’s gotten hard and you bring it outta the refrigerator, you’ll discard your paper and then you’re gonna begin to cut them just like that and place them on your baking sheet. Now you wanna keep them kind of thin ’cause think of them as a cracker, but you don’t want them so thin that they start to crumble, okay? So put them on. They’re gonna bake in a 350 degree oven for about 20, 25 minutes and these are so tasty. You’re gonna love them, okay? We just set that aside. We’ll bake them off in a minute. Next I’m gonna make something similar to that. But this is a cheese basis with nuts in it. And we have here a cup of soft butter. And to that, I’m gonna add about two and a half cups of flour. I have the gloves on because I’m gonna get in this with my hand. That’s the best way to do this stuff. And again, we have some cheese, okay? About two cups of graded cheese. We have some walnuts that we’ve chopped. They’re gonna go in about a cup. Couple, well, let’s see, this is a half a teaspoon of cayenne and we’re going to do, this is two teaspoons of salt. I’m gonna get a little bit lighter on that ’cause I don’t think we need all that. And then I’m gonna do just some, a little bit of black pepper. That’s optional. And this you’re going to want to mix up very well. This will come into a butter and that butter’s gonna hold it together, though, this one doesn’t have to be refrigerated. You don’t have to put this in the refrigerator to get it to come together ’cause these are gonna be made into balls. We’re not gonna roll them out or cut them or anything like that. What we’re gonna do is just when this comes together, we’ll make it into a really nice little round ball, about three quarters of an inch in diameter. And you’re gonna put them on your cookie sheet. Didn’t get there yet. Probably should have done this in the mixer ’cause the mixer brings it together very quickly. But anyway, you’re getting the idea, when this gets firmly mixed together, okay, it’ll start to stick together very well. You can see it’s there already. Now when it starts to get like that, what you wanna do, this will all start to come off your hands. It’s nice to have some kitchen gloves. You know some like latex gloves as you use just for stuff like this ’cause if you’ve had a manicure and then you’re making all this stuff, doesn’t go, okay? Not good. So you just start to take bits of it like this, roll it into a ball, roll it between your hands. It’s a little bit bigger than it should be ’cause these are gonna crisp up and they’re gonna be like little mouthfuls of golden cheese. Oh, delicious. Just about like that. But the last thing you’ll do with this is you’re gonna want to take your tines of a fork. Let me show you here. And you’re just gonna press it down. Make it just a little bit flat, okay? You could even have that little design at the tine on the top. Now these bake in a 350 degree oven for 15 minutes and you’ll have tons of those. You could bake those even a couple of days ahead. That would be nice and they will stay nice in an airtight container. Those are great for a nice little gift. If you’re giving a cookie jar or something, you could fill that jar with these. That’s a great little gift idea, plus it’s wonderful on your table, your buffet table. Now gonna go on. Potatoes extraordinaire. First of all, you want to buy small little red potatoes, the smallest ones you can get. Okay, these are a little bit on the large size, but we have some we made ahead of time. You’re gonna boil them, cover them with water, cold water, bring it up to a boil and you’re gonna boil them only and just, I can stress that enough, until you can get a fork or a thin knife goes into that and comes out. You wanna do it like you would even for potato salad, that’s still too soft just to be able to barely get a knife in it, okay? Then you’re gonna take your potato and you’ll cut it in half. And then, let me get these outta the way here. Get some room. Then you’re gonna take a sharp little knife and you’re gonna go to the edge of this and just start to cut out some of that potato, ’cause we’re hollowing out a little hole in the center, okay? And you’re gonna, you’ll cut through this way to ease out that potato, okay? When you’ve hollowed them out and they might feel a little bit firm, that’s okay. Important thing is to get that hollowed out. Even a spoon might work well for you, whatever works for you, that’s what you use, okay? When you get it hollowed out and you’ll do that with all the potatoes, this one you can do as many or as few as you want. Then you’re going to fill the center with just a bit of sour cream like that. And then you’re gonna decorate. It’s up to you. Do you want a little cheese on that? How about a few little pieces of bacon? There you are. These are called extraordinary and honest. They really are. They’re delicious. These go like crazy. That’s all you do. You don’t bake it. You don’t have to do anything because it’s totally cooked and totally done. One of the simplest and easy to do. Keep them refrigerated until your party starts, okay? The other thing, don’t bring everything out at one time. If you have a neighborhood girl that, she’s interested in cooking, hire her for the night so you can stay with your guests. Let her have a little list. At 8:30, I want to bring these out. At nine o’clock, I want you to bring these out. So you don’t have everything on your table all at one time, you have a little bit that you’re putting out all through the evening and that keeps people coming back to say, what’s she putting out now? And you can stay with your guest and your girl can be in the kitchen, and pay her. Don’t say, would you do me a favor, so I want to hire you? It’s easier to say somebody that you’ve hired, hey, I want it this way than somebody who volunteers and says, well, I’ll do it, but this is the way I’m doing it. You don’t wanna do that, okay? Another one that we’re gonna do. This is on our tortilla shells. I’ll put these over here outta the way and you can get these in your local grocer. These are the flower tortilla, okay? Here we have mixed together. Let me get my, I know it’s here somewhere. Cream cheese and dry, package dry ranch dressing. Make it soft like this. And all you’re gonna do is spread this over your flower tortilla. Clear to the edge, ’cause this is gonna be like the cement, okay? Thank you Linda. Actually it’s a half a package of dry ranch. I didn’t think it was the whole. It’s a half a package too, an eight ounce block of cream cheese. All right, here we go. Now, now what we’re gonna do is we’re going to make two different kinds. We’re going to make salami and we’re gonna make a ham one. I’m gonna demonstrate the salami one. You wanna layer the meat all over the basis of this covering put two together here, covering the whole top of this tortilla like that, okay? I wanna make sure that’s no gaping holes. I’m gonna put an extra piece there because I’d rather have too much than not enough, and of course one in the center. Now with these, we’re gonna put the deal pickles. Deal pickles go with salami, sweet pickles with ham or whichever way you want it, but that’s just the way I like. You’re gonna put that Deal Pickle there, put another one right up next to it, and then I’m gonna cut this one off, ’cause this is just a little bit long and that’s gonna finish here. Now you’re gonna start to roll it over just like that and continue to roll, roll, roll. Now when you get to there, you need a piece of plastic wrap because these little puppies are gonna go in the refrigerator at least 20 minutes to an hour, to a couple, to a day anyway. So simple to do when you’re they’re nice and cold and you bring them out, what you do with them then is you’re gonna slice them into inch or two inch pieces like I have here. These have been refrigerated. We’ll cut them, turn them up. You have a piece of pickle, you have a piece of ham and you have your tortilla around them. They really are good, and everybody loves them. Just keep them refrigerated, okay? And you do the same thing with the ham and the sweet pickle. Well, we’re gonna come back, we’re gonna be in the dining room and we’re gonna show you everything in just a minute. Here’s how you can get all the recipes for this month’s At Homes. We are all ready for our party as you can see, this whole table is just full of wonderful, beautiful ideas for hors d’oeuvres, appetizers. Just wonderful things for people just to take a plate and fill it up with all kind of goodies and all made by you in a short amount of time, not expensive ingredients in all delicious tasting. Let’s start here with our quick quiches. Here there look how nice these are delicate, light, tender, nicely golden. Next to it we have our hot buffalo wings. Believe me, they’re hot, but they’re so good. And we put the ranch dressing and the celery sticks with it. Next to it, we have our salami and pickle wraps or our Hammond pickle wraps, simple, delicious. You can make those loads of those ahead of time and just cut them as you need them. That you can do throughout the whole season. You have those ready and in your refrigerator at a quick moment’s notice you have them. Next to that, we have our cheese dollars. Look at these. These are so good and they’re so delicate, really tasty, really delicate, something I know you’re going to really enjoy. Back here, we have our stuffed potatoes, stuffed with bacon or cheese or chimes or a little bit of deal. It’s very impressive. You wanna keep your, don’t put everything out on a flat surface. If you have a cake plate, use it. Put a plate on a plate or put it right on the cake plate. You wanna get some different dimensions. Over here, we have our Southern cheese balls, these similar, but they have nuts in them, delicious. This one we didn’t get to tell you about. It’s a party rye, little bit of mayonnaise, slices of cucumber and lemon pepper. We also have to keep in mind a lot of people are dieting. We have a fruit tray there with a wonderful ginger dip and a salad, vegetable tray. And all we need is you. Hope you’re gonna have a party. We’ll see you on the next At Home for Christmas dinner, we’ll see you then be sure to join us.
- [Announcer] Furnishings provided by Levin Furniture, featuring Lane’s Country Living Collection. Food provided by Jordan Banana Company, wholesalers of fresh food and vegetables in Dravosburg, Pennsylvania.
- [Narrator] Cornerstone TeleVision wishes to thank all our faithful viewers whose consistent prayers and financial support have made this program possible.
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