Saturday Night Date with a Hor

OMG how embarrassing.... RT doesn't know how to spell whore! Well I do, I was just referring to the other whores, the whores of your meal, the hors d'oeuvres. The first time I saw the word spelled out and not just said aloud I had no idea what it was. The translation was something like whores devours and I thought maybe people were getting kinky. I didn't know anything about anything. I was young. While my pronunciation was set straight, I still always think of hors d'oeuvres (aka appetizers) as the whores of your meal. They come in all shapes and sizes to pleasure all palettes, you usually overindulge, and the experience, while delicious, leaves you feeling full and empty at the same time. Wanting more, full of regret for all of that cheese.... so many calories, so little time. I like how I just said all of that and have no experience with real life whoring. Someone drop me a line and let me know if I need to edit something.

When I did a search for crazy whores, this popped up. Pretty accurate.

 S just came in and asked what I was blogging about. I said "whores." He looked like this:

I'm very disappointed in you.

I went to my wonderful friend R's new place a few months ago and she had a great spread of apps. This is what I call these things in real life and I always have to look up how to actually spell hors d'oeurves (I always forget if the "e" or the "u" goes first) and also when I have to type it I cheat and do this: HDOS. It's catering and event planning short hand. So R had great HDOS set up and I fall head over heels for one. It was a date (this is where the whore date comes in) stuffed with cheese and wrapped in prosciutto. She found it on the Food Network website and of course it's a recipe from the Italian food whore herself, Giada.

Yesterday I decided to make them en mass for a group dinner. We ran over to Whole Foods to pick up all the things we needed. I'll link to the actual recipe below. First I brought the goat cheese and marscapone to room temp then rinsed and finely chopped basil from my plant. All I need is some more basil recipes so I can use my giant supply. Please send them.

Yum

Yum

Yum

I dumped everything in a bowl and mixed it together. Then added salt and pepper to taste. This cheese filling was amazing in itself. We had extra left and we used it as a dip for cherry tomatoes. 

Here is everything mixed together.

I bought pitted dates just to save some time, but some of them were a little more dried out than if the pit would have been inside. I tossed those. I wore talc free "cooking" gloves while handling the dates and assembling, because the dates get sticky and the cheese gets everywhere. So just a hygienic word to the wise. I took the rest and cut them in half when I started to assemble. Then I stuffed one side with cheese and made little date sandwiches.

Halves

Cheese stuffed.

cheesy date sandwiches

Next I pulled out the proscuitto, took the slices and cut them into quarters. 

Next step

Bad job of showing the quarters.

I wrapped the dates up, one quarter of the slice for each. Of course, this all depends on the size of the date. Some larger ones might need more.

Finished product

These are delicious and addicting. A bit expensive with the ingredients, but the good hors always are. Plus I was so happy to find out the cheese stuffing has other great uses. The touch of basil was perfect and after you make these the first time, you can figure out ways to change it up or even do a similar thing with different ingredients. There is just a great balance of salty and sweet and creamy. Food Heaven is for whores. I mean hors. Here is the official recipe.

Happy Sunday! Hopefully True Blood will start to get better for the last three episodes. I'm really sick of Bill and Salome. Although did you hear the breaking news???

I had no idea they made Tru Blood in Houston. But I guess we also have the largest liquor store in the world, so that makes sense.

Best of luck with your case of the Mondays. For realz.

-RT