Fifty Shades of Appetizers

Let me preface this post with the following: I have never read the novel Fifty Shades of Grey, nor do I intend to.  My husband did read an excerpt of it over a woman's shoulder on a plane ride last year and that is the closet I have come to anything involving the novel... until now. (Okay, I might see the movie.)

So, sometimes appetizers can get boring, but they are the old standby that you love, so you make them year after year. This is the case with crostini. I love crostini and it is just so easy. This New Year's Eve I made three different types. One is my usual artichoke Parmesan version which can be found on my post from last year: A Yummy New Year. The other two, like the first, are as easy as pie. Simply spread some ricotta on toasted french bread. Add a little salt and pepper on the ricotta. Then top with salami or roasted cherry tomatoes.

For the roasted cherry tomatoes preheat the oven to 400 degrees and on a baking sheet and then toss tomatoes with olive oil, sea salt and pepper. Roast at 400 degrees for 20 minutes and spread the tomatoes on the ricotta. Yummy!

But, I had to try something new, something more shall I say... daring. Luckily during my after Christmas shopping I happened across the book Fifty Shades of Chicken. Suddenly my New Year's Eve became all the more exciting!

From this parody of the now infamous Fifty Shades of Grey, I picked the appetizer of chicken croquettes. They are sort of like glorified chicken McNuggets without all of the questionable ingredients. A similar version to the Fifty Shades of Chicken recipe can be found here courtesy of Paula Dean.

I thought it might be fun to invite some others to the chicken croquette party... some toothpicks that is.

Unfortunately these toothpicks, while cute, didn't really hold their own with the food. (They are essentially useless.) But they did look cute and that counts for a lot in my book.

And what would a New Year's Eve party be without Champange? We had that in spades because nothing compliments juicy chicken croquettes and piping hot crostini quite like a bottle of Veuve Cliquot!

I'm not one for making New Year's resolutions because I feel like I make the same ones over and over with little resolve. One of the things that I say year after year is that I hope to cook more, as it's always therapeutic and a good creative outlet. Now I have the Fifty Shades of Chicken recipe book, I will have a lot of material to...um experiment with?