Best Little Appetizer Ever!!!
Woman in the Middle | June 2, 2014I enjoy the Pioneer Woman blog and I especially enjoy her recipes. She isn’t into complicated food. Heck, the woman lives on a cattle ranch in Oklahoma. If that doesn’t encourage down home, easy American style food I don’t know what would!
I was looking for something to add to the line up for the recent bridal shower held at my home. I wanted something easy that maybe had a vegetable involved. Then I ran across the Pioneer Woman cooking post from December 16th, 2013. It included a nice little appetizer that you served on a skewer. Best of all, they were so easy the “recipe” consisted of two sentences!
According to the Pioneer woman, you put a cherry tomato, a small chunk of fresh mozzarella, and a spinach tortellini on a skewer. Pile a bunch on a platter and drizzle with pesto dressing. Voila!
It really was almost that simple. Any problems I encountered had nothing to do with the Pioneer Woman and everything to do with me. First of all, apparently inland So Cal is actually a more isolated and backwards place than a giant cattle ranch in the middle of nowhere, Oklahoma. My local grocery store did not carry fresh mozzarella. So I substituted regular, not so fresh mozzarella. Second, I have never dealt with pesto in my life. So I bought a jar of regular pesto. It was way thick and was never going to drizzle anywhere. I thinned it with a bit of lemon juice and water. It was still very thick. So, in desperation, I plopped some on the skewers and smeared it around with the back of my spoon. That worked just fine. Third, there was no spinach tortellini to be found in my backwater of western society. I had to buy three color tortellini from Costco and pick out the green ones. Sigh. My family will now be eating red and white tortellini for the next month.
In spite of my obvious lack of expertise in the kitchen and the limited selection I had at my local grocery store, these appetizers were the HIT OF THE PARTY. The scones? Fine. The meatballs? Tasty. But the skewers??? Almost everyone at the party mentioned to me how good they were.
For those of you who like a real recipe, here it is:
Cherry or grape tomatoes
mozzarella cheese cut into bite size chunks.
Tortellini, cooked according to package directions*
Pesto dressing or jarred pesto sauce
Package of short bamboo skewers
Slide a tomato, then a chunk of cheese, then a tortellini on each skewer. Repeat until you have used up all of the tomatoes, cheese, and tortellini. Lay some of the skewers in a single layer on a serving dish. Drizzle of smear some pesto on each one. Repeat with each layer until all the skewers are on the serving dish. Serve to your guests and watch them experience happiness!
* These will look their prettiest if you use the green tortellini. However, if you don’t have those readily available, feel free to use the white ones, it will all still taste the same. You may want to put the tomato in the middle to keep the white cheese and white tortellini apart, just for aesthetics sake, but the pesto will add a nice bit of green to the whole thing.
Thanks to Ree, the Pioneer Woman for this wonderful appetizer idea!
I love the Pioneer Woman! Love her recipes. Love her humor! You should make them again and take pictures as you make them and post! You can always add your own twist to the recipe and include it! I am going to have to try these! They sound YummY!!!
It would also be good with a balsamic glaze but not as pretty as the pesto green. It does sound tasty.
THat sounds good, too! I will have to try it.
I also love Pioneer Woman’s blog she is bloody amazing
I’ve found fresh mozzarella in Stater Bros., Wal-Mart, Fresh N’ Easy, and Trader Joe’s. They are just packaged differently than the regular mozzarella. I’ve also found spinach tortellini at Cost Plus World Market and Clark’s Nutrition Center in the pasta aisle.