Sunday, October 3, 2010

Cookbook Sunday and Potluck Sunday

Traditional Waldorf salad with blue cheese added makes a great filling for crisp celery sticks.


Today is Sunday and I'm linking these stuffed celery sticks to Cookbook Sundays at Brenda's Canadian Kitchen and  Potluck Sunday at Mommy's Kitchen.  As well, as adding it to a growing list in my own cookbook countdown.  (Just 200 more to go and this will be #35 in my countdown)

Stuffed celery isn't any grand find, or any "new" thing, but I am counting down my cookbooks, so I'm always looking for something ... dare I say it ... easy, in a cookbook (this isn't always the case, but I won't lie to you, it is in most cases for my cookbook countdown), and something that will serve a purpose.

My purpose this time was to find an appetizer to take to a party.  I found this "Waldorf, blue cheese" spread to stuff in celery.  It sounded good.  I like Waldorf salad.  No one in my family does, so I make it once a year just to get my fix.  Who wouldn't like  crispy apples and walnuts and raisins and celery?  Oh, and blue cheese?
Okay, so a lot of you wouldn't like that combination.  But I do.  So I made it.
I took spicy hot wings* and placed the stuffed celery around them.  My thought was they always serve blue cheese with buffalo wings--to cut the spice, I think, so I was going with the same theory.   My celery sticks just had an addition of apples and nuts, sans the raisins  (we put raisins in our Waldorf salad, do you?).
I think they were well liked, because all but 2 of them were eaten. I doubled the recipe so there were closer to 24 celery sticks.

Let me tell you about the party I took them to.  It was a wine tasting party.
This is how it goes: 
Everyone who is invited brings the same kind of wine and a dollar.  And then these wines are put in a wine bag, so you cannot see the label. 
Everyone brings an appetizer.  Thru-out the night, people mingle and visit and eat appetizers and "taste" every wine.  And then we vote.   The wine with the most votes gets to take home all the $1's.  It was about $22 or $24 this time.
It's all the same kind of wine, but it's really amazing how different the same kind can taste, given different  wine producers, different regions.
It was a fun evening.   Relaxing and nice.
And the Waldorf Celery Sticks from  the  2010 Taste of Home Annual Recipes, turned out just perfect.

Here it is:  Cookbook #35



*I must confess, I didn't make the spicy chicken wings...I opened a box.  Don't we all do that sometimes?


Waldorf Celery Sticks

1/2 cup finely chopped apple
1/4 cup finely chopped nuts
3 T. mayonnaise
2 T. crumbled blue cheese
12 celery ribs

In a bowl, combine the apples, walnuts, mayonnaise and blue cheese.  Spoon filling into celery ribs, a scant 2 T. in each.
Chill until served.


Tomorrow is my 500th post.  Or I should say my next post will be my 500th post.
Will my 500th post be about books or food? 
I'm very torn.  I feel as if it should be a special post, since I've failed in the "give-away" department.
I will have to give this some thought.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Debbie, I'm glad I'm not the only one who looks for EASY recipes from their cookbooks, lol. I laughed so hard when I read that because I do the exact same thing. Yesterday's pizza was probably the most labour-intensive cookbook recipe I've made so far but honestly it really wasn't as I used my bread machine for the dough. Your wine-tasting party needs to be about 2,500 miles closer next time. Thanks. That sounds like SO much fun!! And I really do love the idea of your stuffed celery to go with YOUR HOMEMADE wings (hee hee). Thanks for linking up to Cookbook Sundays. Looking forward to post 500!

bermudaonion said...

Oh my gosh, you had me at blue cheese - I love it!

Karen said...

My Mom used to make Waldorf Salad all the time when we were growing up. I love it, but haven't made it in a long time, so thanks for the reminder. Yes, I like raisins in the salad, but I've never put bleu cheese in it and THAT sounds wonderful! What a fun wine tasting that was!

justjoycee said...

This is making my mouth water.....

Kathleen said...

Yum! Yum! Yum!!!

Lori said...

Looks yummy. I love Waldorf salad. Taste of Home has the best recipes.

Friday Friend recipe #352

  Making my way thru my  Friday Friend Cookbook , one recipe at a time. What is the Friday Friend cookbook?  I once had about 50 of my close...