Year of the appetizer, and appetizers of the year

Looking back over the course of the year that was, 2017 was clearly the year of the appetizer at our house.

This was partly by design. The Drink & Nosh feature was a strategic way to encourage me to broaden my appetizer repertoire beyond the tried and oh so true favorites. While it's certainly gratifying to have your guests recognize your offerings and say, "Oh, I love that one" on sight, it was a sign to someone like me that it was time to up my game a bit.

So small wonder then that as I look back at my favorite new recipes in the past year, four of them were appetizers. For simplicity that's simply wonderful, it was hard to beat the garlic and brie toasts we rushed to make at home after having them at our friend's house.

And any recipe that contains roasted squash, roasted garlic and goat cheese over crostini really has no choice but to be good, and this recipe didn't disappoint.

The roasted garlic saffron toasts were amazing even before being gilded with bacon. I plan to try those again garnished with caramelized onions to see if I can make them more Bernie-friendly.

Which brings me to my hands-down favorite, the caramelized onion rosemary dip. Really, an onion dip is my favorite? Yes, because it's somehow like the crack version of the standard store-bought onion dip, which usually does yeoman's duty at any game-day buffet, always readily devoured but never commented on. This version won't suffer that fate. I'm thinking about trying it with a touch of goat cheese, but really, maybe I should just stop while I'm way ahead.

Since there was the Drink portion of the blog gimmick, it's also not surprising that I discovered more cocktails that I really like. I'm not a huge hard liquor drinker, so it was useful (but possibly dangerous) to find some options well worth repeating.

The pear martini was the very best of the lot; it's hard to go wrong with anything containing St. Germaine. And speaking of elderflower flavors, discovering FeverTree's Elderflower tonic water was a quite nice addition to a standard gin and tonic. And speaking of gin and tonics, my close second favorite drink this year was a grapefruit tarragon variation that was so good. As was every gin and tonic we had on our friends' fabulous porch. Thanks, Sonja and Bernie; we really owe you several porch nights when we get ours rebuilt. Rounding out the drinks tray winners was the potentially odd, but surprisingly tasty rhubarb martini.

But I guess there's more to life than appetizers and booze. The winner in the category of Worth Getting Up For: the oh-so-lovely rhubarb scones. Heavenly way to start any Sunday morning.

When it came to lunch, bizarrely, the curried chickpea salad sandwiches were this omnivore's favorite. They are a winner both for flavor and a wonderfully pantry-friendly meal.

In the category of Best Use for a Slow Cooker, and all-around good supper: Corsican chicken with sun-dried tomatoes. 

To make it an even top 10 list, I'll pick the chicken Veronique with grape shallot cream sauce.

As always, some of our favorite meals were random acts of something on a Popine pizza crust, like this one with sun-dried tomato sauce.  Because as much as I clearly like trying something new, old favorites see us through the year. Thanks, Popine, for feeding us for another year, and thanks again, Amy, for sharing her 11 years ago.

So as we cherish the best of the last year, we look ahead and wish that the best is yet to come. Happy New Year.