EASY SUMMER ENTERTAINING July 19, 2006 Susan Noble Family and Consumer Science Extension Agent

It's hot. It's muggy. It's sticky. You'd love to have company over, but who wants to slave over a hot stove making party food?

There's no need for summer entertaining to be a chore. Easy recipes served with flair make partying a summer breeze. Check out these two recipes for proof.

The marinated cheese makes a most impressive party dish. I took it to my family's Father's Day lunch for premeal nibbling. Even picky teenagers liked it.

The recipe calls for fresh rosemary and thyme. If you don't have these growing in the garden, many grocery stores carry packaged fresh herbs. However, these tend to be pricey.

Plus, I don't care what the package says about freshness -- nothing is as fresh as just picked from the plant. Picked from the package just isn't the same.

I think you could substitute a sprinkling of dried thyme for the fresh thyme, but the rosemary needs to be fresh for its great fragrance as well as flavor. Fresh herbs also add that flair to simple dishes.

If you're not growing rosemary, think about planting some this fall to have for next summer's entertaining. Rosemary is super easy to grow and will come back year after year in our area. Prune about one-third of its height off the top yearly in early spring and feed the plant some lime. That's it; remember today's theme is easy.

If you don't have a garden, try planting rosemary as a shrub. Because it's an evergreen plant, you'll have a beautiful green shrub when not much else is going on in your yard. Plus, you can harvest the rosemary for winter cooking and cut great greenery for Thanksgiving and Christmas decorations.

If you do plant rosemary in the home landscape, be careful about spraying 'cides near it. That's insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides.

Even though the recipe is fairly low in calories and fat, I'm going to try it with reduced-fat cream cheese next time. The original recipe suggested using softened regular cream cheese to create a spread for a different look.

For this version, spread the softened cream cheese in the bottom of the pie plate. Chop the garlic, herbs, and lemon peel. Switch from whole peppercorns to 1/4 teaspoon ground pepper. Mix all ingredients together and spread over the cream cheese. Since reduced-fat cream cheese is naturally softer than the full fat version, it should work fine in this application.

I would not try the recipe as given with reduced-fat cream cheese. It will be too soft to cube well.

The cake recipe, which tastes like a coconut macaroon cookie, comes from my Elizabethtown friend - sorta. Several months ago, I made this cake and took it over for a weekend visit.

On a more recent visit, she one upped me. She served MY cake with three mini-scoops of sherbet -- one each of pineapple, orange, and lime. It was like a tropical island in a bowl.

We do eat with our eyes, so presentation can make a big difference. Elizabeth Ann took a plain dessert and gave it WOW status; it was a perfect example of simple food served with flair.

With only four ingredients, the cake is simple to make. Keep the dessert easy by using a spring-loaded mini ice cream scoop for dishing up the sherbets. This scoop also does a great job of dipping batter for mini-muffins.

But why mock macaroon cake? Why not real macaroon cake? For the health record, coconut is high in extremely saturated fat. This is the bad kind that clogs up blood vessels. The cake uses just a bit of coconut for flavor and then fills in with crushed pineapple that has a texture similar to coconut.

Now get to entertaining -- no more excuses. Just be sure to share with me any good ideas you come up with.

Cube cream cheese into about 36 pieces. Place in 9-inch pie plate. Add remaining ingredients and toss lightly. Cover. Refrigerate at least 1 hour or up to 24 hours. Transfer mixture to serving dish and serve with crackers or pita chips. (I cheated and marinated in my serving dish; why wash another dish?)

Makes 18 (2-piece) servings.

Recipe from Kraft.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine cake mix, pineapple with liquid, coconut, and ginger in large bowl. Pour batter into ungreased 13- x 9- x 2-inch baking dish. Bake till golden brown and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, about 45 minutes. Cool cake completely in dish on wire rack. Cut into 20 pieces.

Makes 20 servings at 113 calories and 25 grams carbohydrate each.

Recipe from Weight Watchers.

The use of brand names in this column does not imply endorsement by the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service of the products or services named or criticism of similar ones not mentioned.

E-mail address: Susan_Noble@ncsu.edu

Mailing Address:
P. O. Box 2280
Lumberton, NC 28359-2280

Phone: 910-671-3276
Fax: 910-671-6278

Date Created 07/20/06