Tasty Tuesday!

So I decided to make up my own theme for Tuesdays… Tasty Tuesday! I’m going to post a recipe each week and write my thoughts and experiences with it. Then, you can respond with your favorite recipes! It’ll be a grand old time! I may or may not have a theme for each week, such as cookies, hotdishes (or casseroles, if you insist on being wrong !) ;-), or whatever. Suggestions are welcome for themes!

My first Tasty Tuesday theme is a great starter:

Hors d'œuvres!

My very favorite Hors d’oeuvre is Ham and Cream cheese wrapped pickles. To make this dish, you will need:

1. One block of cream cheese (I use Philadelphia)
2. One jar of your favorite kind of pickles. I’m a plain dill kind of girl, but other flavors would be awesome too! Also, I use a “medium” sized pickle. The large ones leave you with not enough ham and cream cheese in each bite, and the small ones leave you with too much.
3. 1/2 lb of deli-sliced ham, your favorite variety. Again, going with the plain theme, I use  plain Virginia Baked Ham.

Assembly is simple:

1. Drain the juice from the pickles and dump them onto a plate covered with paper towel. The drier the pickle, the better the cream cheese will stick.
2. Beat the cream cheese in a bowl until it is a “spreadable” texture. It will get lighter in texture and more smooth.
3. If the ham slices are large, stack them (if they didn’t come that way) and cut them in half. Cut or un-cut, the goal is to make the ham roughly the size of the pickle.
4. Spread a layer of cream cheese on a slice of ham.
5. Roll the ham around the pickle, cream cheese side towards the pickle.
6. Depending on the size of the pickle, you can cut it either in half or into 1 inch slices.
7. Repeat as many times as you want… these things are amazing! Any extra cream cheese can be used as an easily spreadable topping, dip, etc.

Makes approximately 50 pickle bites.

So, there you go! Now, reply to this post and leave me your favorites! Looking forward to reading and trying them!