Progressive Dinner Appetizers

Pictures will have to be downloaded later, but I have some time to write. We did the appetizer portion of hte dinner. We had mushroom and goat cheese crostini, beef canapes, bleu cheese walnut turnovers, antipasta plate, sesame pork, tomatoes with bleu cheese dressing, crab cakes with honey mustard sauce. We have served at Christmas eve the crostini and crab cakes so I won't mention those much. Both were well received. Everyone knows about the tomatoes. For the beef canapes, I got the butt end of a tenderloin and roasted it in the oven. We sliced it very thin and served it on sliced baguettes, with a mayo-mustard dressing and carmelized onions. I would put this as ok. The tenderloin cooked on the frill was far superior in taste and the baguette was probably not sliced thin enough. Just not the best way to serve tenderloin. IMO, perhaps better with a flank steak or something with a bit more flavor to it. The bread, opnions and sauce dominated the flavor. The turnovers were good. Basic pastry crust rolled out and cut into 3" circles. Filled with mixture of walnuts, bleu cheese and carmelized onions(leftover filling was tremendous on homemade pizza). These were served at room temperature, but also tasted hot. They were good, perhaps a bit dry. These and the beef came from the Joy of cooking. The antipasta tray was very neutral b/c the group coming is not particularly "adventuresome" so I had very mild, group friendly cheeses, olives, peppadews(love those things) and sopressata and smoked ham. I would say the sesame pork was probably my favoite. It marinated in garlic, soy sauce, olive oil and something else for a couple hours. After marinating, it is rolled in honey, then sesame seeds, then roasted in the oven. Slice it thin after cooling, serve at room temp. There was a sauce similar to the maridade but with greeen onion added. Used pork tenderloins. Liked this alot as the meat was cooked just right and the flavor was good. Found the recipe on the internet. Drinks served included vodka lemonades, Shiner Bock, Sunset Wheat, a New Zealand beer, Austrailian Shiraz blend that I found unremarkable but was well received b/c more fruity than dry, and a very good vouvray. Hopefull I can find the label to pass that along. It was $10 and I thought very worth the moeny and a white I would certainly get again. Hint of sweetness without being overwhelming.