Extremely Easy and Delicious Christmas Appetizer

Every year at Christmas many of us struggle to come up with new/exciting food ideas for the party we are hosting or the party we are attending, and to be perfectly honest it is difficult. We want to impress our guests or attendees of the party we are going to but we don't want to spend hours or even days preparing something.

If you are attending a Christmas party at someone else's house, you are going to need an appetizer that is easy to travel with. Endive is an underrated and underutilized lettuce available at most grocery stores. It has a very distinct shape that makes it unique. For those who have never eaten or seen endive, it looks like a small torpedo with a thick white end that turns light yellow towards the pointy tip. The end can be cut off and the leaves separately plucked off and used and little cups for transporting other tasty ingredients to the mouth.

To turn this slightly bitter lettuce into a delicious morsel, having different textured elements in the endive increases its likability and makes it much more complex and interesting. A choice of cheese, some sort of crunchy nut or crouton, and a dressing are good base ingredients to start with when deciding what to serve with the endive.

Here is a fairly easy and tasty recipe for any easy-to-travel with appetizer:

Endive with squash, honey roasted peanuts, blue cheese and rosemary vinaigrette

For Salad:

2-3 heads Endive

1 med size Butternut Squash

2T Olive Oil

1T Fresh Thyme

1/2C Blue Cheese

For roasted nuts:

1C Dry Roasted Peanuts (salted)

1T Honey

1/2T Sugar

For Dressing:

1/2C Rosemary

1T Honey

1T Dijon Mustard

1T diced shallots

3/4C Champagne Vinegar

2C Vegetable or Canola Oil

Salt & Pepper To Taste

- For the salad, cut the thick white end off of the endive about an inch and discard. Take the leaves off separately and store them in ice water so they don't discolor.

- Peel the butternut squash and cut into a small dice. Toss with olive oil, chopped thyme and salt and pepper and lay on a sheet tray or cookie sheet.

- Roast squash at 350° for about 15 minutes checking frequently to rotate pan and prevent burning.

- Remove squash from oven and let cool.

- For the roasted nuts combine dry roasted nuts and are lightly salted, honey and sugar, lay out on a cookie sheet and roast at 300° for about 10-15 minutes, toss the peanuts once during roasting for even coating and cooking.

- Let nuts cool and coarsely chop them

- For the dressing, in a blender place rosemary leaves, vinegar, honey, Dijon mustard, and shallots. Blend until combined

- Leave blender on low speed and slowly drizzle in oil until desired consistency is reached (should still be able to pour)

- Finally you're ready to plate. Find your favorite serving dish and place the separate endive leaves out in a decorative manor. In each endive "cup" put a little bit of blue cheese, butternut squash and roasted nuts in each.

- Just before serving, drizzle the rosemary dressing over each leaf

Hope you enjoy, Happy Holidays!