CEiMB Thanksgiving: Green Herb Dip and Spiced Nuts

Happy Thanksgiving! Because Thanksgiving falls on Thursday, and the CEiMB group posts on Thursdays, this week the CEiMB gang is doing a free-for-all Thanksgiving round-up. I'm pretty excited to see what everyone decided to make. As for me, I made a couple of appetizers that come together quite quickly, and they're light enough to nosh on before the main event: Spiced Nuts and Green Herb Dip.

I debated what to make for this Thanksgiving round-up. I don't host Thanksgiving, and evidently I come from a long line of ladies who like to be in charge of meals in their homes because I was told fairly emphatically that I didn't need to worry about bringing anything. I pondered making the apple cranberry turnovers, I also pondered hot chocolate just because I think it's so festive for drinking while watching the parade (one of my favorite traditions!), but in the end I settled on appetizers. At my pretend Thanksgiving I definitely want something to nibble on before dinner!

First up: Spiced Nuts. I was really excited about this recipe. I'm always looking for a recipe that combines spicy and sweet flavors for mixed nuts. I used a mixture of almonds, cashews, pumpkin seeds, pistachios, pecans, and sunflower seeds for this recipe. These nuts couldn't be simpler to make, just combine the maple syrup (the sweetener for this recipe) with the spices and roast at 325 degrees for about 20 minutes. I didn't have any dried rosemary so I subbed herbs de provence and I thought that substitution worked well. These nuts are really delicious and perfect for a healthy munch, but in the future I would probably double all of the spices. It's just a little subtle for my taste! If you'd like the recipe, click here.

Next up: Green Herb Dip. I always pause on this recipe when I flip through the book -- this was the perfect excuse to try this dip! Now, I happen to love goat cheese; however, if goat cheese makes you nervous, I think that you could easily substitute reduced fat cream cheese because it's about the same texture. It's lacking some of the flavor of goat cheese, though, so you'll need to adjust the seasonings. This is another super easy recipe to put together -- it's a food processor recipe, and it's as simple as putting your ingredients in the food processor and pulsing. I only had Greek yogurt, so I used that in place of regular yogurt. My dip was really, really thick; rather than adding more olive oil, I thinned it with a little bit of buttermilk. It's still a pretty thick dip. The verdict on this? SO GOOD! I gobbled this up, and it will definitely be made again . . . soon! If you'd like this recipe, click here.