Elevating Appetizers

With summer finally around the corner, most people are kicking up their social schedules. Backyard BBQs, post-beach bashes, etc. fill sunny weekend afternoons. While it is tempting to stick that bowl of chips with dip out and call that your first course, there are so many simple, easy appetizers that can be "assembled" with just a TINY bit more effort. Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa, is a big fan of assembling meals and you see a lot of recipes in her cookbooks that require little actual cooking, and rely more on pulling together super-fresh, high quality ingredients instead.

Here are a few super-simple ideas:

Caprese Salad Bites

Slice grape tomatoes and mini-mozzarella balls in half, and skewer them with a piece of fresh basil onto a toothpick. Whip up lots of fresh basil, a garlic clove, olive oil, and salt and pepper in a food processor (or Magic Bullet!) and serve it as a dipping sauce on the side. How cute are these?

Lobster Salad "Teaspoons"

This is elegant and SO easy. Mix up your favorite lobster salad recipe - for me that is fresh lobster meat, celery minced as small as I can make it, mayo, salt and pepper. Serve a small scoop of lobster salad in an endive leave. The endive is both functional and tasty.

Antipasto Platter

The ultimate in assembly, it is imperative that you seek out the best quality ingredients you can find. You also want to pay attention to presentation on this one. When complete your antipasto platter should look like a work of art. I select two different types of meats and cheeses (usually a hard salami and prosciutto and one soft Italian cheese and one hard) and arrange them on a pretty platter with marinated artichoke hearts, marinated mushrooms, olives, and roasted red peppers.