party foods – Page 3 – The Inspired Parent

Vegetable Soup with Italian Sausage

We have a bit of a love affair with different soup noodles…so many fun shapes & any of them will go perfectly with this super easy & versatile soup. Our daughter chose Garofalo Farfalline Pasta this time around but any of your favorites will be a great addition. For this latest batch of soup, we used Johnsonville Mild Italian Sausage but love using different sausages from our local butcher shop and spicier varieties as well.

Once the soup has been ladled into the bowls, we typically finish things off with a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of freshly grated imported Pecorino Romano, which we always have on hand in our home. Yum!

Have fun, play with your seasonings and flavors — soup is one of the easiest meals to change up to suit your mood.

Enjoy & happy cooking!

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Taffy Apple Salad

Continuing our salad week, we’re hitting the sweet side with today’s recipe.

We’ve tried many versions of Taffy Apple Salad over the years as we searched for one with a great punch of caramel flavor, a nice mix of sweet & salty, one that travels well and is people-pleaser.

After tweaking things a bit, the ratios in this recipe gave us what we’re looking for & this delightful Taffy Apple Salad is the one we’ve stuck with for a few years now.

We love using Spanish peanuts — they’re pretty & we prefer the larger pieces of peanutty goodness — but if you prefer smaller bits, using salted, chopped peanuts would work, too.

Regarding the apples, we like adding tart & sweet in the mix to keep things balanced. It’s fun to change-up the varieties to see what you prefer the most.

Enjoy!

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Red Cabbage & Apple Slaw

It’s been a spring salad week at our house — that always seems to happen this time of year — the fresh, crisp ingredients come out and we start moving away from soups & stews and eating a bit on the lighter side.

This simple slaw-style salad is quite the dazzler — vibrant red cabbage paired with green apples & julienned orange zest and it definitely has the wow factor on your plate. Super tasty, too!

Enjoy!

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(Un)Stuffed Cabbage Casserole

Stuffed cabbage rolls are great, but making them always seems so time-consuming. After trying several different cabbage casserole recipes over the years, they all had the same issues…either lacking in flavor, were too water-logged, or just plain boring. We wanted a casserole that was full of flavor, not overly watery/wet, easy to assemble, on the healthier side and would reheat well for lunch or dinner the next day.

We came up with a combination that hits all of our requirements and it’s now a family favorite.

Super easy, reheats beautifully in the oven or microwave - definitely a family favorite! — Reheats beautifully in the oven or microwave – you can easily heat up a portion in a skillet over low heat (put a few teaspoons of water in the pan & cover for a few minutes).

It’s super easy and we’ll often make it ahead of time during the weekend and then pop it in the oven after work on Monday for a fabulous dinner (*bonus* — not having many dishes to clean on a busy night).

Hope you love it as much as we do!

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