A Beet, Blue Cheese and Cherries Appetizer

Roasted beets, apple cider-soaked dried cherries, creamy blue cheese and crunchy pecans. This beet appetizer is hearty enough to stave off hunger and intriguing enough to satisfy curious appetites.

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I don't have enough beet appetizers in my life. You probably don't, either. You may think you've got plenty, but I'm going to try and change your mind.

You know about the Awesome Veggie Apps and Snacks Board, right? It's my place to gather all the vegetable-centric [though not all vegetarian or vegan] starters I come across on the web. There are several beet recipes scattered amongst the hundreds of pins. [I am still figuring out this whole Pinterest thing, so it's rare that you'd find a repeat on that board--keep scrolling down for more ideas.]

I've also got 60 beet recipes from generous food bloggers in my Beet Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. This index is for folks like me eating seasonally from the farm share or farmer's market. The kind of folks who have a pile of fresh beets in the crisper 2 weeks after the last farm share delivery. The kind of folks who always have roasted beets in the freezer. The kind of folks who encourage their kids to use beets in their next school project [and then take photos of the results for a future blog post].

In my defense, the project was to prepare a dish using a vegetable, so it's not like he needed to build a molecule with toothpicks and marshmallows and I wanted him to substitute beets for the . . . . toothpicks [you thought I was going to say marshmallows].

Caramel Pumpkin Butter Cheesecake

Caramel pumpkin butter swirled in a cheesecake, baked in an Oreo cookie crust covered with caramel. A deliciously festive Fall or holiday dessert.

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Do you want something different for your holiday dessert spread? [Want a holiday dessert spread? Hmmm . . . just thinking about a plate of sides followed by a plate of desserts . . .] Well hold onto your forks, because next month I'll be participating in a week long HashtagChristmasWeekPalooza and I'm working on my cookies as we speak. [Kidding. I'm sitting typing and doing the mental prep of cookie baking--and I've stocked up on flour (KAF is on sale!), butter and eggs.]

While I like the occasional trip to the Cheesecake Factory to pick up a slice in celebration, I'm not much on making cheesecakes. A springform pan-full is too much for our family. I opted to make a cheesecake in an Oreo cookie crust [no sponsorship implied, just labeling the specific brand so you can have success in your recipe like I did] since it's smaller, giving me less servings we need to eat.

I figured my Easy Spiced Caramel Pumpkin Butter would be wonderful in a cheesecake, and I was not disappointed. Caramel on the bottom, swirls of caramel pumpkin butter along the top--this cheesecake rocked. If you haven't made your own Caramel Pumpkin Butter you have my blessing to buy a jar of pumpkin butter and give that a try.

I'm not reinventing the wheel here--the basic cheesecake ingredients came from the Oreo website and I just removed the cookies and added caramel, and my caramel pumpkin butter.

For more recipes using pumpkins, please see my Pumpkin Recipes Collection. It's part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me whose compost overrunneth with pumpkins . . . or maybe that's just me. Maybe other folks just feel like getting pumpkins in the farm share or stocking up on cans of puree. 

Cherimoya Ambrosia Fruit Salad

An exotic variation on the traditional Ambrosia or Five Cup Salad--using Cherimoya in place of pineapple makes this fruit salad extra special for your holiday table.

Disclosure--I received the cherimoya used in this salad from Melissa's Produce.

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The fruit salad known as Ambrosia (in my childhood) or Five Cup Salad (in the deli down the street) is a staple in a side dish spread. While we seem to eat it year round, it often appears on our holiday table. Sometimes we dress it up with maraschino cherries, sometimes we add pecan halves for crunch.

When I got a box of FreakyFruits from Melissa's Produce last year [yes, I am still sharing recipes from this. I am slow--in the kitchen and on the computer] I consulted my Melissa's Great Book of Produce: Everything You Need to Know about Fresh Fruits and Vegetables (Amazon Affiliate link) for advice with all of the unfamiliar-to-me fruits. The book describes cherimoya like "lizard-green pine cones", with "a leathery skin embossed with scalelike scallops". Yep, that's a freaky fruit.

When I read, "an alluring sweet blend of pineapple, papaya, vanilla and banana flavors" I decided to give the cherimoya a try in our ambrosia recipe, in place of pineapple. Because cherimoya discolors quickly after cutting, I use my favorite trick for keeping fruit looking fresh, pineapple juice (instructions in my Cream Cheese Toffee Dip for Apples).