Quick, Easy, Impressive Antipasto...and Dipping Oil Too!

Thank goodness for gourmet food stores. Our local favorite, The Southern Season, made it incredibly easy to whip up a really impressive antipasto.

What you need:

Mixed Italian olives – we chose Sicilian, Cerignola and threw in a few Kalamatas (just because we could) which provided a nice variety of colors and shapes.

Cured meat – we chose a nice hard handmade Italian Salami, but you could use pepperoni or prosciutto or softer salami as well.

Cheese, of the Italian variety – we got a Crucola which is a semi-hard cheese with a mild sharpness to it.

Pickled veggies – you can find these on many olive bars, or in a jar near where the olives are kept in the grocery store. In the stores near us, they come in both hot and mild varieties, we recommend the mild, as the hot tends to deaden your tastebuds.

Crunchy breadsticks – if you’re feeling particularly motivated, go ahead and make them yourself…then send us pictures, we want to see. Because we were already making two other breads for this meal we ended up buying some.  We really liked the super thin ones.

Crostini – this is where you can get really creative. We went with a sweeter crostini to balance out the saltiness of everything else. We used fresh-made ciabatta bread and sliced it into appetizer-sized bites. We toasted the slices slightly to give them just a little texture. We then used Bel Paese, an Italian cream cheese, and sweetened it with honey. We slathered the bread slices with the sweetened cheese and topped them with slices of fresh fig. Unfortunately the figs we ended up using were a little bland so we sweetened up the slices by tossing them in some sugar and honey before we served them.

Speaking of bread (no, really we were!)...

You know how when you go to one of those super fancy Italian restaurants, the waitstaff will prepare an oil and spice dip for your bread at the table? Well, this is how to do this at home, it’s really easy and the amounts are going to depend on how many dipping oils you’re mixing up.

2 parts garlic powder
1 part Herbs de Provence
1 part salt
1 part pepper

Mix herbs and place ½ tbsp in a shallow bowl. Pour good quality olive oil over the mixture and dip some freshly made Italian bread (or French bread if you're feeling multicultural) in it!

Enjoy.