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Recipes from Ladies' Gourmet

By Jess
Wow. The Ladies' Gourmet Dinner was a bunch of fun. What a feast! The way it works is that four people sign up to "host" each month, and prepare a meal amongst themselves to serve the group. They also provide all the recipes for the meal for the members to take home. The meals generally follow this formula: Appetizers, Beverages, Soup, Bread, Salad, Meat, Vegetable, and Dessert. I and two other friends signed up for next month, November 15th. There's still an open space, but the group's fearless leader will be calling those members who were unable to attend last night and get them signed up for any openings. In December, there's a Cookie Exchange.

The whole meal was fantastic, but I wanted to share two super, simple appetizers that were a big hit. OK, and the punch recipe. Everyone needs a good punch recipe.

Fruit Salsa and Cinnamon Chips
Fruit Salsa
8oz. raspberries
1 lb. strawberries
6 oz. blueberries
2 T. white sugar
1 T. brown sugar
3 T. fruit preserves, any flavor
2 Golden Delicious apples, peeled, cored, and finely diced

Place berries, sugars, and preserves in food processor. Process until just blended and chopped -- not too long, as you want it to be chunky. Stir in the chopped apples. Cover and chill in the refrigerator at least 30 minutes. Serve with Cinnamon Chips.
Yield: nearly 1 quart.

Cinnamon Chips
10 flour tortillas
butter-flavored cooking spray
1 T. white sugar
1 T. cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350°. Arrange tortillas in a single layer on a cookie sheet. Spray tortillas with cooking spray. Mix together the sugar and cinnamon; sprinkle on top of tortillas. Cut tortillas with pizza cutter into 8 wedges apiece. Spray again, lightly, with cooking spray. Bake for 5-7 minutes. Repeat until all tortillas are toasted. Allow to cool approximately 15 minutes.


Pineapple Vanilla Cheeseball
2 pkg. (8 oz. each) cream cheese, softened
1 can (15 1/4 oz.) crushed pineapple in juice, very well drained
1 pkg. (4-serving size) vanilla instant pudding
1 c. chopped pecans

In large bowl, stir together cream cheese, pineapple, and pudding mix until well combined. Cover and refrigerate at least one hour.
Shape mixture into a ball [could easily make two regular-size balls] and roll in pecans to coat evenly. Serve with crackers, vanilla wafers, and/or ginger cookies.
Makes 24 (2 T.) servings.


Strawberry Cream Punch
1 (46-oz.) can pineapple juice, chilled
2 1/4 c. water
1 (6-oz.) can frozen pink lemonade concentrate, thawed and undiluted
2 1/2 qts. ginger ale, chilled
1 qt. strawberry ice cream

Combine first three ingredients in a punch bowl, stirring well. Add ginger ale, stirring gently. Scoop ice cream into punch bowl.
Yield: 1 3/4 gallons.

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