Sweet Love and Ginger

Appetizer

Campfire Nachos

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This has been one of those recipes that has been sitting in my post folder for a long time. It’s a good one, but getting a halfway decent picture of it has proved to be difficult. For some reason, we tend to enjoy this dish while camping at night, which means no good lighting. It’s in fact usually the worst lighting ever, but that’s life and we forget about it and enjoy the food, because that’s what it’s here for anyway.

Campfire Nachos

Campfire Nachos

This past weekend Chuck, Brody and I met up with our friend Pat for a little camping in VT. It was a much needed break from reality. There was a lot of fishing, puppy dog swimming, and napping. Man, it’s nice to nap, I should do it more often. I mean really why did we ever stop napping?

I’m getting off track here.

I made these awesome nachos for lunch during this restorative little trip. It was the perfect easy lunch that was surprisingly filling. I had originally planned to have these with hot dogs, but the nachos were more than enough to fill the three of us heartily until dinner time.

IMG_1848.CR2

This recipe is pretty basic because getting too fancy when camping can be a drag. You are there to have fun, not slave over every meal right? However, you can make this same recipe just as easily at home in the oven or on a grill where the fancier toppings are more at hand.

Some notes about this recipe. I tend to prep the beans ahead of time at home and put them in a container or ziplock for camping. Again we are going for ease while we are in the woods. If you wanted to add some other veggies or meat you could also toss them in with the prepared beans. Also be very careful about putting the foil pack directly onto hot coals, the chips may burn with such direct heat. We are just looking to warm up the dish and melt the cheese here.

Campfire Nachos

Campfire Nachos

 

Campfire Nachos
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 6 SErvings
Ingredients
  • Several handfuls of tortilla chips
  • 1 can of beans, drained and rinsed
  • 1/2 cup salsa of choice
  • 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
  • Additional toppings of choice (olives, cilantro, avocado, etc.)
Instructions
  1. Lay a large piece of foil out flat and top it with another piece of similar sized foil so that they make a cross.
  2. Spread half the tortilla chips in the center of the cross. Spread half the beans and half the salsa over the chips.
  3. Add the rest of the tortilla chips and top them with the rest of the beans, salsa and cheese.
  4. Fold the edges of the foil up to enclose the nachos in a packet. Place on a grate over a fire and cook for 5 to 10 minutes, or until the cheese becomes melted.
  5. Remove from heat and carefully open the foil packet.
  6. Top the nachos with any additional toppings and serve immediately.

 

Blackberry Pizza with Ricotta & Basil

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Blackberry Pizza with Ricotta and Basil

The black berries are coming into season around here. I was lucky enough to have a coworker that has more than he can eat and donated a few to our household. These guys are so big and juicy that we couldn’t get enough. Typically I like black berries all on their own, but I thought it would be fun to play around with them and try them in a recipe.

I stumbled on this recipe and new I had to make my own version. I mean pizza is always a great idea in my book, and then you add in basil and fruit and it’s like it was made just for me.

Blackberry Pizza with Ricotta and Basil

I added this in as an appetizer at our last pizza night with the Shauber’s and it was a hit all around. Not the kind of thing you’d really love as a meal all on its own but it was a fun appetizer that I’m pretty sure everyone enjoyed.

Blackberry Pizza with Ricotta and Basil

Side Note: It goes really well with a crisp glass of white wine.

Blackberry Pizza with Ricotta & Basil
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 4 to 6 servings
Ingredients
  • ½ a pizza dough recipe (for a 6 inch pizza)
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1 cup fresh blackberries, halved
  • 1 cup mozzarella cheese
  • ¼ cup parmesan cheese
  • ½ cup ricotta cheese
  • 2-3 tablespoons fresh basil, chopped
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
  2. Roll out the dough onto a flowered baking sheet.
  3. Drizzle the olive oil onto the pizza dough and use a pastry brush to spread it evenly over the pizza.
  4. Spread half of the black berries evenly over the dough.
  5. Top the berries with mozzarella, and parmesan cheese until coated evenly. Carefully spoon small dollops of ricotta over the pizza. Top with the remaining black berries.
  6. Place the pizza in the preheated oven for 8 minutes. The cheese should be melted and bubbly, and the crust golden.
  7. Remove from the oven and sprinkle on the basil.
  8. Serve immediately.

Blackberry Pizza with Ricotta and Basil

Italian Style Cheese Plate

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townandcountrymag.com
Now if you have spent any time with me you would quickly learn that there are certain things I absolutely love. Some of those things include wine, cheese, olives, and bread. One could imagine my excitement when I dug into my first Italian style cheese plate. I knew before visiting that Italians loved their mozzarella, but I had no idea that they really truly appreciated a wide range of fine cheeses quite as much as they did. I saw an incredible amount of amazing cheese plates fly by me in restaurants and every time just their whizzing image was enough to make my mouth water.

Now if you have spent any time with me you would quickly learn that there are certain things I absolutely love. Some of those things include wine, cheese, olives, and bread. One could imagine my excitement when I dug into my first Italian style cheese plate. I knew before visiting that Italians loved their mozzarella, but I had no idea that they really truly appreciated a wide range of fine cheeses quite as much as they did. I saw an incredible amount of amazing cheese plates fly by me in restaurants and every time just their whizzing image was enough to make my mouth water.

An antipaste plate served to us during our wine tour in Tuscanny

The typical “rules” (I use this term loosely, because I never follow them) for a cheese plate are that it should contain a variety of cheeses with different consistencies, some crusty bread or crackers, something crunchy, such as nuts or pickles, and something sweet such as fruit, dried fruit, a sweet spread or honey. Seems simple enough right? Well, let me tell you, the Italians make it even simpler, while casually tossing in an appetizing array of cured meats. But, of course, they do.

Homemade Italian style Cheese Plate

A typical afternoon snack at our apartment in Rome

Most of the cheese trays that I saw contained only 2 to 3 types of cheese including a mozzarella (sometimes a smoked mozzarella, which is my personal favorite or a combination of the two), a gorgonzola, and a pecorino. Next, there were a similar number of meats, which were typically salami, prosciutto, and bologna. To accompany the plate there was typically some good crusty bread, or toast, and almost always a few olives, or an olive tapenade.

This combination of flavors is simple and rustic, much like the majority of the delicious Italian meals that we had throughout our trip. I think that the simplicity of this type of cheese plate, as well as its flavor combination, is one of my favorites. It’s definitely something that we will be trying out more often now that we are back in the states.