Tapas Night

Tapas translates to finger food in English, and despite my wish to keep last weekend's appetizers Spanish in nature, I strayed a little in order to satisfy my curiosity. We ate tapenade and a chick pea spread on crostinis, chorizo-filled dates wrapped with smoked bacon, stuffed mushrooms and meatballs with Jagermeister and mint in them. Of course there is a lot of wine to be served with it. Below are a few of my favorites.

Chorizo-filled dates wrapped in bacon

Adapted from: http://www.epicurious.com

Ingredients

• Package of bacon
• 8 chorizo sausages
• 24 dates

Remove eight sausages from their casings and saute them in a frying pan, breaking them up into small pieces as they cook. Remove the pits from 24 large dates and fill with the sausage. Wrap the sausage-filled dates with uncooked bacon and secured with a toothpick. I used half a piece of bacon for each date. Bake for about 25 minutes in 350-degree oven.


Olive tapenade crostinis

Adapted from: http://www.marthastewart.com

Ingredients

• Baguette of french bread
• 1 cup olive tapenade (either green or black olives chopped to a paste the consistency of your choosing)
• 3 T dried currants
• 3 T  fresh thyme, finely chopped
• 5 T chopped walnuts
• 5 oz soft goat cheese

Cut baguette into half-inch slices and brush olive oil on each side of each slice. Place on a cookie sheet and toast for 6 minutes each side, or until lightly browned.  Remove from oven and let cool before using.

Place the olive tapenade, currants, thyme and walnuts into a food processor and blend to a paste. Spread a thin layer of goat cheese onto each slice of crostini. Add a few spoonfuls of the tapenade over the goat cheese. Serve with a few thyme leaves topped on each crostini.