I Do Not Run a Vegetarian-Friendly Household

The last time I visited 42, we stopped by his favorite hoagie shop to pick up, well, hoagies (of course), but more importantly, pepper shooters! He had extolled their virtues on the phone to me many a time, so I finally had the chance to try one! And they were good! A pepper shooter consists of a hunk of extra sharp provolone, wrapped with prosciutto, that's been stuffed into a cherry pepper. Even better, they also had they're special creation, the salamincini, which is basically the same idea: a hunk of extra sharp provolone, wrapped with salami, stuffed inside a peperoncini! I preferred those, but probably because of the flavor of the pepper more than anything.

One of the reasons we made the 30 minute trek to this hoagie shop was because they had these pepper shooters. 42 wants me to learn how to make them and make them for him! Ah, do I love a challenge! So on Saturday, I decided to try making them. I made both types and the soaked them in olive oil overnight. They're good, but they don't taste exactly like the ones I had when I visited him. I'm going to call the sandwich shop to see if I can get any more information from them on how to make them. Here's how they're looking...



The point is, I have some friends coming over tomorrow night to play Die Macher. I was going to offer them as snacks tomorrow night, then I remembered, OH WAIT, one of them's a vegetarian. So I guess I'll just warn him about the meat content.

This is the second time in the last month or so that I'd have to warn a vegetarian off of a seemingly innocuous dish! Who would expect pickled peppers to have meat in them? The last time was during Bakefest 2007, when we made the bacon chocolate chip cookies. I had my friend Gary (also a vegetarian) come by and I had to warn him about the bacon content in the cookies! Not a normal warning, I'm sure! :-)

Oh, and I've been meaning to post a picture of this because it's too good to not get a mention in the blog... For my New Year's Eve party, Shannon made a retro meat-tacular appetizer! The meat tree!!!

O Meat-Cheese Tree...

Isn't that amazing? When she walked in we were all amazed I took the picture with my tree in the background for sizing. That was a pretty tall tree, at least 7 ft tall! It was covered with cocktail wieners, hunks of cheddar and pepper jack cheese, pigs in a blanket, gherkin pickles, olives and I think that's it. It was delicious!! And talk about presentation! It was quite festive and was a huge hit!!

Meat & Cheese tree close-up