Arkansas Appetizer Lunch by Ruth Paget
The heat and humidity in places like Arkansas where it is already in the 80s at 7 am make cooks rise early to get baking and cooking done for light lunches on screened-in porches to keep mosquitoes out and lunches untouched by flies. Pitchers of icy sun tea to drink keep you from dehydration.
Main dishes in Arkansas mostly feature rice, duck, and chicken according to Gwen McKee and Barbara Moseley, the editors of Best of the Best from Arkansas Cookbook. Rice is the major cash crop of this state that lies along the Mississippi River.
There are recipes for many chicken dishes and casseroles in this cookbook, but I love mixing appetizers and muffins to make light lunches. (This is a habit I learned from eating appetizer platters at Middle Eastern restaurants as a child in Detroit, Michigan.)
I thought the following the following recipes make a very healthy appetizer table with items that you can prepare ahead of time:
-dilly garden dip made with blended cottage cheese, lemon juice, carrots, green onions, parsley, and dill
-cheese and bacon spread made with cheddar cheese, cooked bacon, green onions, almonds, and mayonnaise
-homemade Boursin made with blended butter, cream cheese, garlic, basil, chives, dill, marjoram, thyme, and pepper. Very easy to make if you have an herb garden
-Monterey cubes – baked eggs, Monterey Jack cheese, flour, cottage cheese, and mild green chilies that are cut into cubes after bakin
-spinach cheese squares – baked onion, cheese, spinach, eggs, flour, and milk that is cut into squares into squares after baking
-marinated whole mushrooms
-crabmeat mold – a refrigerated gelatin spread made with crabmeat, cream of mushroom soup, cheese, onion, and celery
-Mexican corn bread made with green chilies, corn meal, creamed corn, skim milk, cheddar cheese, and egg whites
-peach muffins – made with peaches and almonds -blueberry oatmeal muffins
-applesauce muffins
-apple muffins made with raw apples
-black cherry almond coffee cake -sour cream coffee cake – I lived on this in high school
-spicy pineapple zucchini bread made with walnuts, raisins, cinnamon, and nutmeg
-turkey cranberry sandwiches - taste great with sun tea
-watermelon rind preserves – a delicious no-food-waste item
Cooks interested in using garden fresh ingredients and orchard fresh fruit will find many useful recipes in Best of the Best from Arkansas Cookbook edited by Gwen McKee and Barbara Moseley.
By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
