Hi, happy holidays. My name is Marie Guaragna with MGB events in Arlington, Virginia. Today, I am going to show you how to make some quick and easy holiday appetizers for your holiday party this season.

First, I am going to show you how to make a wonderful hot Artichoke dip. The ingredients that you are going to need are going to be cream cheese, some marinated artichoke hearts, some grated Pecorino Romano cheese, some salt and pepper, some unsalted butter and the tools that we are going to need to make it with are fork, a mixing bowl, a spatula, an oven baking dish and a pretty festive holiday spreader to serve it with.

So, now let us get started on a quick and easy holiday appetizers. I went ahead and softened our cream cheese and I like to use 100% cream cheese. No cheating on my holiday appetizers. It's already softened, it makes it easier to work with and we are going to go ahead and incorporate our unsalted butter. I like to use a fork with this it just helps to marry both of the ingredients together. We are going to go ahead and just mix it together, get it going nice and soft, mix it around and get that altogether before we incorporate our other ingredients. This is such a wonderful quick and easy appetizer and it s not really just for the holidays. I like to use it all year around and it s definitely a crowd pleaser.

Now, I am going to go ahead and put these marinated artichoke hearts and which I have already drained, we don t need the liquid. I mean I like to use the marinade because it gives it much more flavor. Before I incorporate these marinated artichoke hearts in I am going to pull out a couple, just so that I can put them on top and that s going to show my guests just exactly what kind of dip we are actually going to be serving. So, the rest of them, I am just going to dump them right in and they smell wonderful. You don t have to cut these because your fork is going to go ahead and just skid them on nicely mixed up and together with this wonderful rich cream cheese and butter, it s so tasty.

Now, we are going to use some Pecorino Romano cheese. We are going to have a we have about a quarter cup here. I am going to put in most of it but I am going to reserve some for the top just so that we can have a nice cheese topping. Now, whenever you are using any kind of Parmesan or Romano cheese you don t really need a whole lot of salt. I am just going to throw in just a little pinch in there and then of course, we are going to throw in just a pinch of ground pepper. Mix it altogether, try not to make a mess like me. Basically, that s really are the ingredients for this appetizer and these are all things that I always have in my pantry or in my refrigerator and it would be so easy for you guys just whip this out. Somebody I know, people are always popping into my house.

So, it s so easy just to get it together and it only takes just a little bit of time to cook. So, we have incorporated them all together. Now, I am going to take my oven proof baking dish and I have with me my spatula and I am going to get all these wonderful ingredients into my bowl. Don t want to lose anything and you need to take your fork and make sure you get everything there. Then, just spread it evenly so that it gets equal billing on the oven.

Now, you can definitely see that there is something in there but it's kind of hard to tell exactly what it is so that s why I went ahead and I reserved some of those artichoke hearts, try and get all that off of there and you could just festively place them right there in the center and it looks nice. Now, I am going to take the rest of my cheese and just sprinkle it on top and that s it. Can it be any easier than that? So, we have got a pre-heated oven, 350 just for 15 minutes and we are going to come right back and I am going to show you just how wonderful this really is.

I believe our artichoke dip is ready. Come on, let s take a look. It should be nice and bubbly, not real brown. Oh, look at that nice and bubbly not too brown just a little brown around the edges and boy, if you could smell this right now. Oh, it smells so wonderful and you could see just around the edges here we are bubbling nicely and you could see our beautiful artichoke hearts. They have been just a little bit browned. It looks very nice.

Now, you have just a wonderful, delicious, boy, it just smells so amazing. Easy artichoke dips for your next holiday party. Enjoy.