That week between Christmas and New Years~

When you have guests and are tired of all the usual Christmasy Hors d'Oeuvres..Try these..
Plus the variations you can do are endless.



Perfect little packages of bite sized nibbles~





I first made this a few months ago and was reminded of it today..



Spotted through Tastespotting.. Mike's Table

Phyllo Caprese Bites

* 4 sheets phyllo dough
* ~1 Tbsp butter
* campari tomatoes (or some other sweet, small variety)
* 6 basil leaves
* 1 oz mozzarella
* salt
* pepper
* 3 kalamata olives

This recipe makes about 3 pieces, so scale up appropriately

Begin with the standard treatment for phyllo dough: melt and clarify the butter, carefully lay down a sheet of phyllo dough, and gently brush the surface of the dough with butter. Carefully lay another sheet of phyllo on top, brush it, and repeat until your phyllo stack is 4 layers tall.

Depending on the size of your phyllo dough and your intended cooking pan (I used a muffin pan), your cuts might be smaller than mine, but I cut my stack into 3 pieces (rectangles larger than the holes in my muffin pan).

Before you place your phyllo rectangles into the muffin pan, either grease the pan, or better yet, brush the underside with butter as well (so that all visible phyllo surfaces are buttered). Gently press the phyllo into the muffin pan, taking care not to poke any holes through it.

With the phyllo pressed in, on to the filling. Thinly slice the tomatoes, chiffonade (thin slices) the basil, and crumble off chunks of the mozzarella. Then, layer in some tomato slices, basil, mozzarella, and a dash of salt and pepper. Figure about one small tomato and 1-2 leaves of basil per piece.

With the filling in place, you can now seal the phyllo packages up. I didn’t do anything too fancy, simply folding up top and folding/crimping it all together. Top each piece with a pitted olive because it looks nice and olives are awesome. :-P

Transfer this to a 400°F oven for 20 minutes so that the outside can crisp up and turn golden while the flavors inside will meld together.

Once time is up, allow for a few minutes of cooling time and then carefully remove each from the pan so that they can cool down before you serve. Enjoy!