Salami Antipasto Bites

My cousin’s birthday is in May and typically during the weekend of the Sole Burner 5K run/walk for cancer. I have run this with them a few times and this year because I was recovering still I decided to walk it. It was a cloudy and cool morning but over 6,000 people showed up and supported a great cause.

After the run, we relax in the afternoon and then she typically invites people over for a birthday cookout. She will supply the meat and a side dish and just asks that everyone bring a dish to pass. This is where my creative juices start flowing and I come up with something fun and different to make.

I jumped to Pinterest to scope out some recipes. I went to my Snack Attack page and realized I had so many pins on there that I haven’t tried yet. I’m really going to try to make something once a week from my boards. I spent all the time pinning so I might as well see if they are good or not.

I selected Antipasto Bites from my board. I knew the flavor would be something everyone would enjoy but making the salami cups intrigued me. 

 I used a muffin pan and put the salami in each spot. The first batch was a little tricky to get the salami to stay down and form a cup. In the oven at 400 degrees for 10 minutes and you have crispy cups. After the first batch, I lowered the time to 7 minutes so the salami was still a little soft. The second batch worked much easier because the cups had some grease in the bottoms of them for the salami to stick too.

While the salami was baking, I mixed up the middles. I used artichokes, cherry tomatoes, black olives, mozzarella balls, Italian seasoning and cooking spray. Originally I was going to use Olive Oil, but with the artichokes and tomatoes having moisture already, I didn’t think I needed the extra oil.

Chop up everything into small 1/2″ pieces. I quartered the tomatoes and olives and bought small mozzarella balls and cut those in half.

Once the salami was cooled, I spooned in the toppings. I tried to make sure each cup had a little of everything. These were a bit hit at the party.

I quite enjoyed them myself. It’s an interesting take on the salad and makes it bite size. People didn’t wait for the brats to be done and were snacking on these before the meal. These would be a great Memorial Day cookout take-along. 

All of the food was a huge hit at the party. I even have two new recipes that I want to try from the party. Texas Caviar and Chocolate cupcakes make with beets. The Texas Caviar was my absolute favorite thing and I couldn’t stop eating it. I got the recipe and can’t wait to make it myself. The beet cupcakes weren’t as sweet as a regular cupcake but the frosting made up for that. I will definitely make these soon and share those recipes.

My cousin’s birthday party was a great success. She started a fire for the adults to sit around and enjoy some libations while the children played ladder golf, jumbo Jenga, and other yard games. Everyone had a great time.