TRISCUIT Cheese & Charcuterie Hor d’oeuvre boardScuit

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“I’ve never met a cracker I didn’t love.” Yep, that’s an accurate statement when it comes to me.  I’ve been known to have literally a glass of milk and plain crackers for dinner just because.  Growing up one of my favorite night time ‘treats’ was to sit at the kitchen table with Mom & Dad, a sleeve of crackers, some peanut butter and homemade jelly with a big glass of milk.  Crackers are comforting, homey… familiar.  As I got older I realized that crackers are meant for way more than my go-to pb&j.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still eat that but there’s just something ‘upscale’ when you transform a cracker into an elegant dish. So today that’s what’s your getting from me – a TRISCUIT Cheese & Charcuterie Hor d’oeuvre boardScuit!

When the amazing folks from TRISCUIT introduced some of their new artisanal flavors (Smoked Gouda, Mediterranean Style Olive, Sriracha) I was super excited.  Then when I was offered the opportunity to work with them on these new flavors but some of their existing ones I was beyond thrilled!  You guys don’t understand my love of their crackers.  At this very point in time I have 7, yes 7 boxes of TRISCUITS in my house. And here’s the thing – that’s the norm for me.  I can never decide which flavor I want so I always end up getting 2-3 different types. How can you not when they are awesome?!

As soon as I got the “Hey we want you to create something for us” notification I jumped in my car, booked it over to my local Walmart super center where I know they have everything I need and headed straight to the cracker aisle.  And there I stood…drooling…having such a hard time making up my mind on what flavors to get. I mean just look at the selections!  How does one simply decide on a single box?  I’ll tell you; you don’t!  You grab one box and then a few more – it needs friends!

So after standing there for a bit I opted to go with their Smoke Gouda, Hint of Salt and Sriracha.

Now for me I’m one that will totally content to sit there in front of a movie with just a box of these crackers and a drink. You people can keep your chips, nachos, desserts and what not. No, not this girl. While I’m a chips girl all the way, crackers win every time… ESPECIALLY TRISCUIT crackers.

However this time I wanted to go with something that not only presented well for a party (or even a pretty party board for me when it’s ‘my time’ while Mr. Fantabulous is at band practice) . What’s huge now are Cheese & Charcuterie boards. Obviously we all know what cheese boards are but charcuterie boards are fairly new here in the US.  All a charcuterie board is more of an appetizer board featuring cured and dried meats, garnisihments (nuts/pickles), pate and maybe some breads/crackers.  As you can see that’s what I did here in my own way.

Now the key to making up a beautiful (and delicious) cheese and charcuterie board is have a variety of flavors that pairs beautifully with the vessel in which they are to be transported on – in this case, TRISCUIT crackers. What I do is create a ‘display’ platter that shows how these items should be made and flavor profiles. Now make sure you make up about a dozen of each type because let’s face it, some people just want their foods made for them so they’ll just reach for those.

For the Hint of Salt crackers I opted to keep it simple but packed with such amazing flavors.  Since fresh zucchini is in season now I opted to roast some baby zucchini rounds.  You could easily go with steak cut portabello mushrooms, carrots, squash or even eggplant. Next you want something that will balance out the flavors so instead of onions I went with shallots. Since I was roasting the zucchini I went with roasted shallots.  They take on a sweet flavor and pairing that against the hint of salt of the crackers it’s a beautiful balance. And since I need cheese with a cracker I went with a light white aged cheddar.

What’s great about this cracker combination is it’s so packed with flavors but literally with 4 ingredients that ANYONE can make! It doesn’t take a lot of time or effort to put together.

Plus look at it people – look how unbelievably delicious this looks!  Trust me, it tastes amazing!  That hint of salt from the crackers is the perfect balance here.

Next I had to focus on the Sriracha pairings.  You know me, I love me some Sriracha – almost as much as ketchup but there’s just something magical about Siracha.  A bit of heat and sassiness – just like me *wink*.  For this combination I wanted to add something sweet with it so I started backwards in building this cracker combination. I had green apples and sharp cheddar.  While I could have easily stopped there it was missing something.  I thought about turkey or chicken but while they were ok, you know me – I don’t do just ‘ok’.

So this recipe sat for a while as I couldn’t figure out what to put with it. Instead I started on dinner. I happened to be making my Maple Chipotle BBQ Pork tenderloin for dinner.  Flash forward to later that night as we’re eating dinner. Mr. Fantabulous was yapping away and while I was doing the obligatory head nod and ‘uh huh, okay, yeah’ automated responses truth be told I couldn’t stop thinking about what I could serve with these crackers.

Then it hit me… DOH! The pork!  This pork tenderloin would be perfect with the apple, cheddar and sriracha cracker!

FYI… I was so right it’s scary! I literally got up during mid dinner, grabbed the crackers and created this cracker below (well okay not this exact cracker as I pretty much swallowed the first one whole because it was so good!). Now what’s awesome about this dish is that you can serve this warm, room temp or even with cold pork slices. Yes, it’s that amazing!

Last I went with the smoked gouda flavor.  This was probably the easiest for me to come up with flavor combination wise as when it comes to smoked gouda my go-to flavors are prosciutto, smoked gouda cheese, roasted grapes and honey.  The only additional item I would have added (had I had it on hand) was some peppery arugula.

Again this is something anyone can make and I’ll be honest, you have not lived until you’ve had roasted sea salted grapes.  TRUST ME ON THIS!  It’s life changing!

This dish is the one that will have the biggest visual ‘wow’ factor only because it’s an ‘odd’ looking cracker.  Most wouldn’t expect to see this but trust me, one taste and they will be coming back for more.

So how will you dress up your TRISCUIT?  Check out some other fantabulous idea here!

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