{"id":966,"date":"2010-06-01T14:36:37","date_gmt":"2010-06-01T21:36:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/?p=966"},"modified":"2010-06-01T15:30:34","modified_gmt":"2010-06-01T22:30:34","slug":"appys-night-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/appys-night-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Appy&#8217;s Night Out"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We went over to my sister&#8217;s house on Friday night for an appy&#8217;s night. <\/p>\n<p>I was stressing a little about finding some appy&#8217;s to bring that were not only delicious, but also easy to make and I wanted them to fit within the dietary guidelines that I&#8217;m choosing to live with.  <\/p>\n<p>I feel WAY healthier when I&#8217;m not eating dairy or wheat and I try to avoid meat the majority of the time.<\/p>\n<p>So, if you take those requirements and then add a bit of preggo brain&#8230;.I was seriously struggling to come up with something aside from the Chevre (Goat Cheese), Roasted Garlic and Pappad (Lentil Flour Crisps) that I ALWAYS bring.<\/p>\n<p><center><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/xangelle\/4661306774\/\" title=\"Goat Cheese &amp; Pappad by Xangelle, on Flickr\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4020\/4661306774_88429dd097.jpg?resize=332%2C500\" width=\"332\" height=\"500\" alt=\"Goat Cheese &amp; Pappad\" \/><\/a><\/center><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s delicious, so I don&#8217;t mind bringing it, but I like to have new ideas to share and try&#8230;..<\/p>\n<p>Finally about 4pm (We were supposed to be there at 6pm) I wondered about making a Greek Salad Bite and I also had some idea about a mini dessert that would involve some sort of wafer or cookie base and berries.  At first I was trying to come up with something that would glue the berry to the cookie like custard or whipping cream, but then I wondered if I could use the same chocolate that I use to make my non-dairy fondue.  MMMMMM, It sounded like it would be delicious.<\/p>\n<p>Jon and I ran up to the store and picked up the ingredients that we would need and came home and slapped it all together and whadda know&#8230;.both ides were a rousing success.<\/p>\n<p>Here are the Greek Salad Bites&#8230;..<\/p>\n<p><center><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/xangelle\/4661304444\/\" title=\"Greek Salad Bites by Xangelle, on Flickr\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4058\/4661304444_0f849fa0ae.jpg?resize=332%2C500\" width=\"332\" height=\"500\" alt=\"Greek Salad Bites\" \/><\/a><\/center><\/p>\n<p>I bought cherry tomatoes, mini cucumbers, goat feta, green peppers, purple onion and klamata olives.<\/p>\n<p>I cut the cherry tomatoes in half, sliced the mini cucumbers, cubed the goat feta, cut the peppers and onion into small squares and halved the olives.  <\/p>\n<p>Then I put a half a cherry tomato on the toothpick and put the wedge of cucumber on next to make sure the seeds and juice wouldn&#8217;t fall out.  I then placed a cube of the feta, then the purple onion slice followed by the pepper and topped off with the olive.<\/p>\n<p>I made up the dressing (<em>just a regular greek salad dressing, either homemade or bottled would work<\/em>) and put all of the &#8220;bites&#8221; into a container to take them to the party.  I poured the dressing all over the top and let it sit until I got there.  I pulled them out and put them on the plate and TADA!!!!!! Delicious appy&#8217;s that just happen to be vegetarian&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>To make the little berry desserts, I bought some Nila Wafer&#8217;s from the store along with some non-dairy chocolate bars and some Silk Soy Creamer.  (<em>I figured that if If I had to I could just use the Nila Wafers but I was trying to find something that I could eat without compromising.<\/em>)  You should be able to get chocolate bars that aren&#8217;t made with dairy at your local grocery store, you just have to look at the ingredients.  They will probably be plain and also a dark chocolate.  I also popped over to our health food store and they had some chocolate mini cookies that were dairy and wheat free and so I picked up those as well.  When I got home,  I melted the chocolate and then stirred in the soy creamer to make it a little bit softer.  <\/p>\n<p>I laid the cookies down on a plate, spread a dollop of the chocolate onto each cookie and then placed a berry on the top of each one.  I used blueberries and raspberries, but I also think that strawberries and banana&#8217;s would also be delicious&#8230;..YUM!!!!!<\/p>\n<p><center><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/xangelle\/4661304794\/\" title=\"Chocolate Berry Bites by Xangelle, on Flickr\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4041\/4661304794_529e4c83d4.jpg?resize=332%2C500\" width=\"332\" height=\"500\" alt=\"Chocolate Berry Bites\" \/><\/a><\/center><\/p>\n<p>Both of these dishes were completely finished off and along with everything else that was brought, it was an amazing evening of good food and great friends.<\/p>\n<p>I love to be able to bring food that fits within the lifestyle choices that I&#8217;ve made, but that others are willing to eat because it&#8217;s JUST. THAT. DELICIOUS!<\/p>\n<p>I am not as strict about my diet as I could be, but I do try to make the best choices when I can so that when I can&#8217;t&#8230;..I really don&#8217;t need to worry about it.  I try to live healthy, but I don&#8217;t want my choices to leave me unable to ever enjoy life&#8230;.at this point, eating dairy or wheat or meat makes me feel uncomfortable, but it won&#8217;t kill me&#8230;..but if I can live (and eat) in a way that doesn&#8217;t make me uncomfortable &#8211; then I want to make that choice&#8230;&#8230;and, if I decide that I really want that piece of cheesecake at the restaurant&#8230;..then I&#8217;ll have it knowing that I&#8217;ll most likely end up with a gut ache and a few other unmentionable side effects.<\/p>\n<p>But, I do love it when I can come up with ideas that work, are delicious, and keep me healthy and happy.  The biggest bonus is when other&#8217;s don&#8217;t even realize that I&#8217;m feeling them food that&#8217;s &#8220;abnormal&#8221; (to them).<\/p>\n<p>Do you have any dietary limitations and do you have any good ol&#8217; standby&#8217;s for parties or get together&#8217;s?  I&#8217;d love to hear how you cope with food allergies, intolerances or even medically necessary avoidances (like sugar for diabetics???).<\/p>\n<p>You can see <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/xangelle\/sets\/72157624183824742\/\">the set from the Appy&#8217;s Night here<\/a>&#8230;Not even one shot of me&#8230;can you tell who had the camera&#8230;.and by the few pics taken &#8211; not for long, eh?  We were having too much fun chatting and eating.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We went over to my sister&#8217;s house on Friday night for an appy&#8217;s night. I was stressing a little about finding some appy&#8217;s to bring that were not only delicious, but also easy to make and I wanted them to fit within the dietary guidelines that I&#8217;m choosing to live with. I feel WAY healthier &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/appys-night-out\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Appy&#8217;s Night Out&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[15,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food","category-health"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=966"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":978,"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/966\/revisions\/978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}