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Will wonders never cease?
My dd asked me to be in charge of appetizers and snacks at my GD's high school grad party in two weeks. Its at a local park, under a canopy with picnic tables. DD will be getting Costco pizza and hot dogs. Hopefully she'll be in charge of drinks and paper goods.

I need to use my fb canned goods, so son and I already gathered up the ingred for a chili cheese dip. I have bags of lower sodium bean free chili along with deep pantry '21 and '22 various beans. I'll add a can of '21 diced tomatoes and then use up some of my old cheddar cheese. Tt will all go into a crock pot that has an insulated cover that I got at an estate sale last fall. I'll buy Fritos scoops.

What else?

I thought of deviled eggs, cus the Lord knows I have eggs.

I'm not worrying about dietary restrictions. I don't know how many are coming. I won't get hurt if my stuff isn't eaten all the way. More leftovers for us.

Other ideas?

Fruit salads always go over well at this kind of an event. I make a good "dump" salad with canned fruit and canned pineapple. I just drain all of the fruit except for the pineapple juice and mix it all together. I bet your deep pantry has some ingredients for that.

How about a mix tray of veggies, fruits, meats and cheese........I wouldn't buy one premade, but if you buy all the ingredients, then you'll definitely have extras for you at home. To keep that cost down, only do maybe 2 or 3 of each......and a box of Ritz crackers.

Possible suggestions.....

1. Fruits......Grapes, apple slices, orange segments
2. Veggies......carrot and celery stix and snap pea pods
3. Meats.....turkey and ham lunchmeats, maybe salami too
4. Cheeses......cheddar, swiss, pepper jack

Buy the chunks of cheese and cut/slice yourself, about the size of the cracker and the packages of lunchmeat can also be cut to size instead of full pieces. Remember, these are only appetizers/snacks so they don't need to fill up on them, but still have room for the pizza and dogs.

Oh, yes on the canned fruit. There is so much mandarin oranges and mixed fruit. I could then sprinkle with shred coconut.

I watched "A charming abode"on YT and saw that she used a "letter" that she bought at Hobby Lobby. Then pulled off the backing and used the "letter" as the tray for meats and cheese. I can do that too. Lots of types of crackers from fdbank.

Kids are going to want chips and snacky stuff.

It’s an appetizer so go light.

Here’s a great idea for serving fruit :


Mini muffins, cupcakes, Rice Krispie treats and cookies are all good options for a dessert table.

Meatballs in sauce or the mini sausages in sauce are good appetizers. A big tossed green salad would go good with the pizza along with garlic bread or bread sticks.

A buffalo chicken dip with crackers or a cheesy artichoke dip with tortilla chips are more ideas for feeding a crowd.