Layered Summer Veggie Appetizer

When you think about appetizers, do you throw a bone to the healthy contingent and include some carrot sticks and hummus?  Is your conscience soothed by adding celery sticks to your Buffalo chicken dip?  Do you pick up a veggie tray at the store and call it good?

Are vegetable appetizers an afterthought?

I want to change that.

I'm on a quest to create awesome vegetable appetizers--ones that are demolished before the cocktail weenies or cheese balls, because they are just damn good.  I've got a Pinterest board, Awesome Veggie Apps and Snacks, and as I find new ways to turn vegetables into desirable appetizers I'm pinning them there.  Please leave suggestions in the comments so I can add them--thanks!

Cherry tomato confit, cucumbers, banana peppers, artichoke hearts, olives and feta

Last winter, I started things off here with a Slow Cooker Salmon Swiss Chard Artichoke Dip and a Skillet Mushroom Dip for Two.  In the spring I started a craving for Five Layer Mediterranean Chicken (or Chick Pea) Dip that continues today.  Lately, I've been kinda dippy, with Fattoush Dip with Kale and Sumac Hummus and Indian-spiced Eggplant Yogurt Dip.  Today I want to share another delicious way to incorporate seasonal vegetables into your happy hour, cook out, tail gate, or indulgent dinner for one:  the Layered Summer Vegetable Appetizer.

While the autumnal equinox is weeks away here in North America, the mood has shifted to autumn.  The kids are in school, football marching band season is in full swing, and the sled hockey gear is back out. However, the garden and the farm share are packed with late summer vegetables--peppers, eggplant, tomatoes and squash are filling up my weekly box.  I created this layered appetizer to show off the best of late summer produce.

Grilled red peppers, grilled red onion, grilled yellow squash, artichoke hearts and feta

Discerning readers will say "hey, that looks like the Fattoush Dip she posted 3 weeks ago" and you'd be correct.  Other clever followers will think "what, another Wednesday eggplant dip recipe?"  Right again.  However, I'm sharing this recipe now, not next summer, for a few reasons:

• the base of this appetizer, roasted eggplant, is still very much in season and you might be looking for new ways to enjoy it
• I think this is a party-worthy appetizer, and while I'm not hosting anything until Fall, you may be looking for new appetizer recipes
• with the variety of special diets around, vegetables are a great way to create a dish that nearly everyone can enjoy

Indian Spiced Eggplant Yogurt Dip

Roasted CSA farm share eggplant seasoned with Indian spices and tempered with yogurt for a spicy, tangy kid-friendly appetizer.

Eggplant in the CSA farm share, as I have admitted recently, is something that requires thought on my part.  It's not like carrots or broccoli, familiar enough to eat any old way.  It's not like a tomato that can be delicious on a sandwich or put up when we get too many all at once.  It's not like beets, that I hog all to myself enjoy in a myriad of ways (check the Visual Recipe Index for recipe ideas by vegetable).

Eggplant is in a (very small) class of vegetables that the kids will eat, and happily, one particular way.  This summer I'm trying to change that.  When I made my Baked Eggplant Chips for the same-named Pizza the kids were not big fans.  I tried an Indian-spiced eggplant chip and the texture put my daughter off, but I was on to something--keep the flavor, use the food processor.

Five Layer Mediterranean Chicken Dip

Would it be awful to suggest you make Slow Cooker Greek Chicken Tacos just to have the leftover meat to make this appetizer?  Oh, and make Avocado Feta Dip (my variations are below) too, because that's what provides the foundation for this delicious appetizer.  If you don't eat chicken, scroll down and see the photo I took yesterday of something I think would go great instead, marinated chick peas, or skip it and just use the rest--still utterly delicious, but you'll have to call it a Four Layer Dip.

When I think of appetizers, I tend to return to my favorites time and again.  After all, they are favorites for a reason!  You can find them over there -----> in my Recipe Index By Category.  In the Appetizer category.  That was probably redundant.

I always like to try new things, however, so this recipe came about as a combination of wanting to try something new, wanting a familiar appetizer, and the desire to use what I've already got in my fridge.  Voila!  Taking a page from the many Mexican layer dips I've enjoyed over the years, I present to you Five Layer Mediterranean Chicken Dip.  Thank you to Linda for help with the name.  I can develop the recipes, grow the celery, prepare the food, take a few photos, write the post . . . but dreaming up recipe names is HARD! (Yes, I'll take some feta with that whine.)

About five minutes after I took the first photo, this was all that was left.  I know we were hungry, but holy cow!  This appetizer is delicious.  We ate it with pita chips and carrots, but home re-grown celery, snow peas, zucchini or yellow squash slices would all be great delivery vehicles for this stuff.

K.I.S.S. {Beau Monde Dip with Cottage Cheese and Vegetables}

My family doesn't really go for cucumbers.

When we get them in the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share my first thoughts are big:

  

I'll make gyros and use the cucumber to make tzatziki sauce!  

We'll have Indian food and I'll make raita!  We'll have sushi!

This past summer I got into pickling.  The one common burger topping in our house is pickles.  Thanks to Food In Jars, I've discovered how easy and tasty it is to put up a couple of jars of refrigerated kosher dills.  I've expanded that to include pickling several other vegetables.

But sometimes I need to remember the KISS principle.

Keep It Simple, Sillybilly.

For other vegetable appetizers, please see my Awesome Veggie Apps and Snacks Pinterest board. For other recipes using cucumbers, please see my Cucumber Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. Want to know how to Use This Blog? Click here.