It never fails that there is a family get together that you don’t know what to bring. Or maybe it’s an office or friends get together. And this is especially painful for those of us who cook well and bring an amazing dish but no one wants to touch it because it’s not one of those Pinterest fad dishes.
This is what you want to bring!
Back at Easter I found a Pillsbury cream cheese and crescent appetizer. I can’t find the exact one, but this link is their fall version in case you want to use an official recipe.
The problem I had was that after more than a decade of marriage, no one in my husband’s family told me that they preferred salty/savory dishes over sweet dishes. And I love cooking pastries and sweets. So once I got that bit of information I finally got the secret to making something that they always want to eat, I feel loved, and I’m not bringing tons of leftovers home of my dish (because they don’t want to take any home).
Again, the above link is for the thanksgiving version. But the Easter version focused on fresh parsley instead of the cranberries. I wanted to keep my Thanksgiving appetizer simple, so I just recreated the Easter version and put it in a cup instead of in a carrot shape, like I did this past spring.
You really don’t need the recipe. For the parsley version all you need on hand is:
- Pillsbury crescent rolls (feel free to use the generic brand, it’s just the carrier for the cream cheese!)
- Cream cheese
- Parsley
- Flavored Salt (I love garlic so I use garlic salt, but feel free to use any herb/flavored salt you have on hand)
Create Your Shell
For Easter I made a carrot shape by wrapping strips around a cone of foil. For Thanksgiving, I made a bowl by cutting squares and baking them over the bottom of my silicone cupcake molds.
Here’s the trick! If you want to create bite size pieces, use mini cupcake molds. The standard cupcake molds creates pieces that take about 4 bites. Know the people at your party. My family wants the bites that they can just pop in their mouths (or take two bites if they’re being dainty and polite). So the mini is perfect for your grazing appetizer get-togethers. If you’re doing something like a sit down side, the larger (regular size cupcake mold) is perfect for preparing pre-made plates for your get together.
TIP: Use the oven temperature on the package of your crescent rolls. But cut back on the cook time. The minimum cook time on the package I used was 9 minutes. The perfect golden brown I found came at 7 minutes.
Mix Your Filling
For the two packages of crescent rolls that I used, I mixed up about 32 oz of cream cheese. At Easter I found that 16 oz was barely enough to fill my carrots. In fact, I scraped from some carrots to fill others just to make sure that there was “enough” for all the carrots. And this filling is great to have leftovers with because you can spread it on bagels or toast and you will love it just the same!
Taking from my days at working in a University Dining Hall, if you want creamy cream cheese, you want to take the 10 minutes or so to aerate your cream cheese. All you do is take your cream cheese and put it in a bowl and use a hand mixer on high speed. (The Pillsbury recipes never tell you this trick, but believe me you want to do it!)
When you first start mixing, you will feel the chunk and clunk of the dense cheese. After 10 minutes you will notice that it feels like you’re mixing a thick butter cream frosting. At this point is when you want to season the cheese. Everyone’s salt preferences are going to be different, so I’m not going to tell you an exact measurement to put in. I prefer to barely taste the salt, in fact I would never salt cream cheese for feeding me or my boys. For my husband’s family, though, I salt it a touch beyond my comfort zone–this hits their food pleasure center. So if you are no or low salt making these for people who love salty food, season the cheese enough that it’s just outside your comfort zone but not a salt bomb. If you like salty food, season it to your exact preference. If people tell you that you like salt too much, season the cheese so that it tastes bland to you, but you can still barely taste the salt.
Once the cheese is seasoned, then you want to add your seasonal flavor embellishment. Parsley is good no matter what time of year. I like using just parsley because it’s not going to clash or taste bad eating before or after another appetizer. Plus, parsley is known as a palate cleanser. So if someone eats an appetizer that did not sit well on their tongue, they can come right back to yours and reset their mouth to go on with their party eating.
TIP: Right before Thanksgiving, Monday to be exact, all the parsley was severely picked over and the bunch I bought, when I got home and opened it had some slimy wilted parsley in the center. I couldn’t serve that to family, so I grabbed my dehydrated parsley off my herb shelf. While I love fresh herbs, I keep dried herbs for this precise reason. So don’t be afraid to use any dried herbs that you have on hand!
With the above recipe link, you will notice that Pillsbury used cranberries and jalapeño. Don’t be afraid to use other flavors during the rest of the year. For example, back for Easter I grated some carrots and put carrots in with the fresh parsley. For spring and summer you could definitely use dehydrated or freeze dried berries. (Just be careful of your water content from berries if you use fresh. They can loosen your cream cheese so it becomes too soft and sloppy.) For a fall and winter option, don’t be afraid to add some Pecans, Walnuts, or other winter nut. Even a candied nut can be your friend for a little bit of sweet and savory combo!
Putting it Together
It is possible to pipe the cream cheese mixture into your crescent shell. You will want to do this when you’re finished mixing your filling. And if you don’t have a piping back and tips in your kitchen, all you have to do is put your cheese into a zip lock bag, snip and bottom corner (after you zipped it up with all the air pressed out). The only drawback to this method is that if your cheese was put back into the fridge or not aerated, then the bag is going to burst.
What do you do if the bag bursts?
Take two small spoons from your drawer. I teaspoon full of cream cheese is more than enough to fill the shells made from the bottom of the mini cupcake molds.
Once your shells are filled, you can finish them off with a dusting of parsley or other flavoring that you put into the cheese (crushed nuts, berries, fruit, etc.).
There you have it!
This is how you can make an impressive appetizer without spending a fortune and doesn’t require a degree from a chef school. But even if you have even less time or say that you burn boiling water, if you can bake crescent rolls then you can spend a little more and get the fancy flavored cream cheese that is pre-made for you.
Even if you seriously can’t cook the crescent rolls, skip the chip and dip route. Pick up the pre-made flavored cream cheese and swing by the bakery department in your local grocery store. You can find pre-sliced bread or even baguettes. Slice up the bread, spread some cheese on top, and sprinkle some parsley (or other ingredients mentioned above).
What’s your favorite appetizer to take to a party?
Items that might interest you for making this appetizer
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Standard Sized Silicone Cupcake Molds
The silver platter I used was a wedding present. Here is a Silver Tray available in a similar style.
Or perhaps you’re looking for a Ceramic Tray.
Various Freeze Dried Fruits to choose from. These Cranberries are a seasonal favorite that’s unique from the fresh berries in the store where they are good for a year after opening.
How I Can Do That 
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