Pep Up Your Football Party

A few weeks back my brother mentioned he had an easy, football party recipe for me to try. Then he tells me it’s called “White Trash Puff Balls.” Hmmm. Maybe I’m embracing my trashy side a little too often! Pabst Blue Ribbon roasted chicken and a recipe with the descriptive word “white trash” in the same month? Certainly a risk.

But, Big Rob of “Big Rob’s Buffalo Dip” fame and his lovely girlfriend were coming over to watch the playoffs and I certainly couldn’t serve a master of football ceremonies a shoddy appetizer.

I did a quick Google search half expecting that my brother completely made this recipe up as an excuse to refer to his big sister as “white trash” but low and behold, there are about 1,000 hits on the web for such a distinguished snack.

To avoid further tarnishing my previously stellar reputation, I’m calling my healthier version Pepperoni Bites. Anyone who thinks they don’t have time to throw together a quick homemade appetizer for a party should really check this out. It has only three ingredients!

Chop a 6oz. package of turkey pepperoni into tiny pieces (I used a food processor). Mix the pepperoni with an 8oz. block of 1/3 less fat cream cheese. This is now your filling to stuff reduced fat crescent rolls. Open up two packages of crescent rolls and cut each triangle of dough into two. Drop a big spoonful of filling on each and seal it up into a little package. Bake at 350 degrees for about 12 minutes or until the bites puff up and turn a beautiful golden brown. (* 2 Weight Watchers Points per bite).

These little pepperoni snacks fill the entire house with the smell of buttery, freshly baked biscuits. When you take a bite, the filling is warm and gooey, but not so runny that you have scolding hot cream cheese running down your hand. The filling stays in the pocket where it belongs; one little perk of using reduced fat cheese and perfect for party snacking.

Turkey pepperoni happens to be one of those products that I prefer over pepperoni made with pork or beef. It isn’t greasy, and it has the exact same flavor profile as the original. Since the meat is so heavily spiced, there’s no need to load up the filling with tons of other ingredients.

White trash or not, these were a crowd pleaser. We polished off the whole tray. To top it off, the Jets brought home the W. Go team!

* Get cooking. Let me know what you think. Love it? Hate it? I’m interested in hearing your feedback and suggestions.

Big Rob's Buffalo Dip

I’m completely obsessed with hot sauce. It’s sour and spicy and basically makes everything taste delicious. To top it off, it’s virtually calorie free. I splash a whole bunch of Texas Pete on my eggs every morning. But the absolute best way to showcase hot sauce in all its glory is the classic buffalo chicken wing.

Not only are buffalo wings completely immersed in butter, but they’re usually fried to boot! Ten cent wing night at the bar will easily max out your calories for the next three days. And that’s not counting the beer. Who in their right mind can have wings without beer?

I have to 100% credit my friend Rob for his buffalo wing dip recipe. It’s amazing. “Rob, come on over and watch football” is secret Trish code for “Rob, come on over and bring dip!” I asked for his recipe years ago but never tried to make it myself.

Nothing can top the original, but I’ve done my best to make a really tasty football snack that’s lighter than the classic buffalo wing or Rob’s ooey, gooey delicious dip. Using leftover chicken from my BLUE RIBBON CHICKEN, this app comes together in no time.

The bubbly, rich BUFFALO CHICKEN DIP tastes exactly like a buffalo wing dunked in blue cheese. It isn’t fried, it’s a great throw-together app to use up extra white meat chicken and you can dunk big hunks of celery instead of having to eat a bowl of tortilla chips. Score!

* Get cooking. Let me know what you think. Love it? Hate it? I’m interested in hearing your feedback and suggestions.

Holla for Jalapeños!

Are you ever in one of those moods where you just need to have the ooey, gooey, cheesy richness that can only mean Mexican food? I was having some fabulous friends of mine over for dinner a few weeks ago and I was in one of those moods. They were being fed Mexican food whether they liked it or not!

I was looking to put out a little picky snack while the steak for steak fajitas was grilling outside, so I found this recipe for Emeril’s BAKED JALAPEÑO POPPERS. I thought stuffed jalapeños would be a cool change of pace from the expected chips and salsa. Plus, I kind of wanted to test this recipe out because I thought it would be equally as great for an app during football season (which I’m super psyched is coming up quickly).

I’m pretty impressed by celeb chefs that opt to bake instead of fry. Let’s face it, a jalapeno pepper that’s filled with creamy cheese, crusted with breadcrumb and fried to a deep golden brown is basically irresistible. The fact that my buddy Emeril decided to bake these instead made me happy. It’s an easy little substitution that can save a whole lot of calories.

Emeril even opts for panko breadcrumb that he spikes with his own seasoning blend instead of the typical Italian stuff that comes pre-seasoned. Panko is definitely lighter and after making these, much crispier. I was even able to dig up the appropriate spices from the depths of my spice cabinet to make the blend. I basically followed the original recipe to a tee except for using reduced fat cream cheese instead of the full-fat version.

This was a great little Mexican themed snack. The peppers were a little spicy and I didn’t cook them to complete mush. I like when peppers have a little bite to them. The filling was rich and cheesy without the “I need to put on sweat pants and vegetate in front of the TV” effect that Mexican often has. The baked crust was nice and crispy but didn’t leave a yucky oily residue on your cocktail plate. I’m definitely going to be making these again when the Jets hit the field in the fall!

* Get cooking. Let me know what you think. Love it? Hate it? I’m interested in hearing your feedback and suggestions.

Stealth Bean Guacamole

The weather was so gorgeous this past weekend, all of the restaurants in town had their front doors wide open with little bistro tables lining the street. I was sitting outside, enjoying a nice date-night dinner when a waitress at the restaurant next door pulled a cart alongside one of her tables. Being the Nosy Nelly that I am, I couldn’t help but notice a huge bowl of guacamole being prepared tableside. This got me thinking, is it possible to diet-up guacamole? Can something with so few ingredients stand up to substitutions?

I hit the supermarket the next morning on a mission to see if this would actually work. A friend of mine saw Bethenny Frankel from Real Housewives of New York City make a “Mock-a-mole” which substituted mashed green peas for some of the avocado. Let me tell you, if there’s anything I hate more than any of those horrendous Housewives shows, its peas! I’ll try just about anything, but peas score highest on my “I won’t budge, this just doesn’t taste good to me” list. Plus, peas have a pretty strong flavor and I felt they would change the taste and texture of the dip.

So, I opted for white beans instead. Goya sells “small white beans” in a can that have a very mild flavor and are much less grainy than the texture of some of the larger beans. I used one avocado and mashed it up along with the white beans, flavored with typical guacamole flair and voila my friends, guacamole!

So let me explain why guacamole needs a substitution anyway. You’re probably thinking, how can mashed-up fruit be all that bad for you? Avocados are actually very good for you. They’re high in “good” monounsaturated fats that help promote healthy cholesterol. However, fat is calories no matter how you slice it and avocados are very fatty. A medium-sized avocado packs on about 30 grams of fat which translates to over 300 calories. For someone trying to watch their overall calorie count, this is an awful lot of calories to invest in a very small amount of food. By swapping out some of the avocado for beans, you’re still getting the health-benefits from the avocado, but also cutting the fat and adding some fiber and protein to the dish.

Most importantly, this really does taste just like guacamole. I’m the first to admit when something is a nice substitution but doesn’t come close to the original. This is a home run. I like a chunky texture to my guacamole, so you can see some of the white beans mixed throughout. If you really wanted to hide the beans, you could run them through the food processor for a smoother texture.

I baked up some of my own cumin-dusted whole wheat chips to dunk. You can score the recipe for both the chips and the guac here.

* Get cooking. Let me know what you think. Love it? Hate it? I’m interested in hearing your feedback and suggestions.