Show us your Life: Recipes ~ My Appetizer, sides and a Twist on a Southern Favorite

This week at Kelly's Korner - it is all about Dinner Recipes. I am going to share a appetizer and a different twist on some Southern favorites: Barb-Q chicken and Mashed Potatoes and gravy.

My Appetizer is homemade hummus and homemade pita chips. Super easy, & super yummy. It's great to keep for a few days and munch on and also great when having company or a party.

There are many hummus recipes out there, so it depends on what flavor you want. One of my favorites is Roasted Red Pepper and Garlic - which is what I made. If you are not familiar, hummus is made of Chick peas. I have bought hummus at the store many times - but I enjoy making my own too. To eat with the hummus, I like pita bread or pita chips - which you can buy at the store as well. Personally I love pita chips with hummus, and it is super easy to make your own.

Roasted Red Pepper Hummus

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 can of chick peas/garbanzo beans (15 oz)
• 1/3 cup tahini (this is a peanut butter like substance but with sesame seeds and can usually be found at your local grocery store - or you can make your own)
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 2 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1/2 cup -3/4 cup roasted red peppers (depending on taste)

Preparation:

Combine everything in a food processor and process til smooth. Add peppers and garlic til desired consistency.

Garnish with parsley. This hummus can be made up to 2 days in advance and stored in the fridge. You can serve it warm, cold or room temp.

Pita Chips

Purchase a bag of pita pockets. Cut them in to triangles. Lay them on a cookie sheet and brush them with olive oil. Then sprinkle a little salt and pepper on them. I also sprinkled a little garlic powder, or you can use garlic salt - but if you do this, I wouldn't use regular salt before so that way they are not too salty. Sometimes a little Parmesan cheese sprinkled on them is good too as well as some herbs. I didn't do the Parmesan when I made this batch - but you can.

Bake approximately 10 minuets at 425. You can get them out a little before if you want them to stay a little chewy or leave them in a bit longer if you want them super crispy. But 10 min. is probably the best. They will harden once they sit for a bit. I usually store mine in a large ziplock bag.

Bar-B-Q chicken legs with Mashed Potatoes 'n Gravy, & Green Beans

We eat a lot of chicken, but sometimes I get SO tired of just regular baked chicken, so we have tried to do more chicken on the grill. One of my favorite things to grill are chicken legs. They are not very expensive and so easy. I like to put a lot of barb-b-q sauce on mine and then throw them on the grill. I did this not too long ago and with it I served another Southern classic: Mashed potatoes and gravy, but with a twist. I actually took some baked potatoes we had left over and made some homemade mashed potatoes, which is super easy. But for something even quicker, you can do the good 'ol store bought mashed potatoes in the box. I had some gravy in the fridge that I had purchased at the store, and instead of placing it on top of the mashed potatoes, I drizzled it on the plate first, then took an ice cream scoop and scooped out the mashed potatoes. After that I took some frozen green beans I had sauteed and placed them on the plate, then added the chicken leg. Everyone love this. It was sooo good, so easy and looked pretty too! This is a great thing to do for company too! Chicken legs cook pretty fast on the grill and as I mentioned before, they are not very expensive. So if you are having a party - you could buy a lot of these without breaking the bank!

Two other VERY simple things to do to go with your dinner are roasted veggies and then for a bread, drop biscuits. Roasted veggies can be almost any veggie. I've done potatoes, onion carrots, bell pepper and then squash, zucchini and onion is really good too! So you can really do anything. Sometimes I just do what I have, like this time when I only had squash and carrots in the fridge - some onion and bell pepper would've been good with it too, but this was still yummy and healthy too.

The drop biscuits are great for breakfast and to go with dinner depending on what you are having. And they are as simple as they sound, you simply mix and drop them on a cookie sheet. I wont take the time to type the recipe, but it is usually on the side of a Bisquick box. I've done this and added sugar to them to make strawberry shortcake and then I've added garlic and shredded cheese when mixing them for garlic cheese biscuits. So there's a lot you can do with a box of Bisquick!

Hope everyone has a great weekend! Mike is going out with his best friend tonight downtown to eat at Rendezvous. So I'm thinking of doing a little DIY project, having some wine, and lighting my candles all over the house as usual and maybe a movie later. If I get into my DIY project tonight and it turns out - I'll post pics.

Toodles