Indian-Spiced Potato Samosas with Curry Lime Yogurt

My favorite part of any meal is the appetizer.   For some reason, these small tasting portions hold a spell over me, tempting me from the left side of the menu to abandon the large entrees on the right and run away together.  Be it a relish tray, appetizer, tapas, tasting menu, amuse bouche, or any other small-plate derivative, if it comes before the main course I'm dying to have a love affair with it.

I think the love comes from the smaller size - for, logically, if it's smaller than an entree I need to eat more of them.  Thus, I get to try more food, instead of being stuck with just one type of food on my plate.  Gluttony, it seems, knows no bounds.  Of course, with the way serving sizes have grown exponentially, an appetizer from a restaurant is usually more than enough food for a normal person's meal.  Even a not-so-normal person like me.

But aside from their adding more food to a meal, appetizers have a different sort of feel than a main course.  They're smaller, more playful.  Many are made to be eaten with fingers, so wrapped up in a pastry or on a stick. Dolloped with sauce or dipped into a bowl, they're just more FUN than big food.

Because of this fascination with appetizer foods, I have tons of recipes bookmarked to try.  Problem is...i just don't make appetizers in my day-to-day life.  And who does?  I'm going to come home from work and assemble a ton of mini crab cakes before making dinner?  NO.

So when C asked me to bring an appetizer to her dinner party on Saturday, I just about leapt with joy.  Finally the excuse I've been craving - I get to make a finger food!  Whatever one I want!  And I can eat as many of them as I want before I go to the party too!

Scanning through the bookmarks, I was instantly drawn to a Cooking Light makeover of samosas, the traditional Indian snack.  Typically filled with curried potatoes and peas, then deep-fried and served with chutney, Samosas seem exotic but are a food common across many cultures - dumplings.  And who doesn't like a dumpling!?  This version replaced deep-fried dough with phyllo dough, keeping the crunch while removing the calories.  I made many tweaks on the spices, potatoes, and amounts, but otherwise stuck fairly close to the recipe as written.  I also decided that any finger food worth its salt needs a dip, so I combined some curry and lime with greek yogurt for a cooling, different twist.

Maybe because the three couples at the party with us are about the nicest people on earth, but these samosas got rave reviews.  I almost wish I had been a shadester and stolen the leftover dumplings to take them back home with me...but knowing that our kind hosts got to have an extra helping is more important.  Besides, I have another roll of phyllo dough in the freezer and no scruples to stop me from making another batch.

CHEX MIX, For Claire

Oy, listen here.  Miss Claire requested, and I'm here to deliver.  That most mystic of snack mixes, that wonder of cocktail parties, that favorite food of hyperbole-loving bloggers.....

CHEX MIX.

Yes, chex mix.  You know what it is, and you know you love it.  If you don't...well, then, we just can't be friends.  But how can't you?  It's salty, savory, garlicky, crunchy, full of all sorts of bad for you salty bits.  What's not to like?  Unless you're talking about the pre-made bagged chex mix, which is basically repulsive (although the cheddar jalepeno flavor looks strangely appealing...)

It's the little things that make a difference in the mix, and one of them is quite shocking:  I don't use chex in chex mix.  Not usually, anyway.  I prefer crispix.  THE HORROR.

Crispix to me are the best of both worlds, combining the wheat and corn in one crunchy bite.  But, I use chex sometimes (half the time), because I do like to mix corn and wheat chex together to have different bites, and it amplifies the amount of chex-to-other-stuff ratio - which is good when you live with chronic pickers, the people who seek out their favorites out of the bowl.  A high school friend once ate every single chex out of a bowl, leaving all the lonely cheerios, peanuts and pretzels behind.  I was enraged.  Why would you do such a thing?

Then, I thought, perhaps I'm the one being a touch overly dramatic about the whole situation.  It is, after all, just a snack mix.  But it's not.  It's so much more.  And it wasn't drama, folks.  It was WAR.

Anyway Chex Mix is just one of those universally appealing, ultra-simple, "what gourmands might turn their snooty noses up at but will still eat handfuls of repeatedly" foods. You probably all have an idea how to make it, too, since a variation on the recipe is on just about every Chex box out there.  Mine, I don't know if it's similar or different, cause it's just the way mom makes it, so it's the way I make it.

Make it often, and invite me over. Click the "more" link to learn, well, more.

Pumpkin Seeds!

Oh, pumpkin seeds, how I do love thee.  You grace the stage but once a year, coinciding with one of my favoritest holidays, Halloween.  Like many of us, I never outgrew the thrill of putting on a costume and assuming a new identity.  Of handing out candy and receiving in return.  Of all things spooky, ghoulish, and creepy-crawly.  Of watching horror movies in the dark.  Of carving pumpkins, planning each year's creation well in advance and reveling in the gory guts of each pumpkin interior.

Prior to the oven

Which brings us to pumpkin seeds, a byproduct of pumpkin carving that you'd be ill-advised to waste.  Because, my friends, they are delicious - nutty, chewy, savory, salty seeds of goodness.

You've probably had plenty of pumpkin seeds that weren't very special at all.  Too much work, too much fiber, not a high enough payout.  And this is a fair conclusion, I think, based on the huge number of pumpkin seed recipes that just plain GET IT WRONG.

I'm serious.  You think you don't like seeds, make them my way.

The pale seeds TRANSFORM into these brown, crispy goodies. 

See, most recipes--almost all, in fact, that I have found--make a vital mistake.  They have you wash - and even sometimes dry - the seeds first, before seasoning and baking.  Why?  Why would you wash the pumpkin flavor away?  It just makes no sense!

Happy Halloween!

Instead, leave all the pumpkin slime on them.  It seems gross, but so does eating raw pumpkin.  Yet cook the seeds, and the pumpkin residue caramelizes and darkens to a deep brown, leaving a subtle pumpkin flavor and a big visual impact.  Amplify the savory notes with a splash of worcestershire sauce, and sprinkling of salt, and a knob of melted butter.  Bake, cool, and prepare to be spooked--who knew a pumpkin seed could be this good?