Ice Wine Party!

As I mentioned, I bought some ice wine at Inniskillin, a winery in Niagara-on-the-Lake. Last week, I had the chance to throw a party where Bre and I cracked a bottle with our Mothers paired with some special appies. I had fun finding out which flavors went with which wines (the Inniskillin site was really helpful for this). I picked apricot and parmesan cheese as the flavors I wanted to explore. The woman who gave us our tour actually suggested parmesan as a pairing for Vidal ice wine.

In the spirit of appetizers, I made parmesan crisps topped with apricots. Parmesan crisps are super good and super easy. I would completely recommend them if you want to look classy without a lot of actual effort. All you need to do is put 12 tablespoons of parmesan in little mounds on a parchment-lined cookie sheet and bake at 500 degrees for three minutes. And voila! You have parmesan crisps. You could put them with dip, eat them plan or top them with something. This time around I sweetened the cheese up with dried apricots on dollop of ricotta cheese and sprinkled with toasted almonds. But I urge you to experiment with the flavors you might want to try.

Parmesan Crisps topped with Apricots
Inspired by Parmesan Crisps at TasteBuddies

Freshly grated Parmesan cheese (use the large holes)
Dried Apricots
Ricotta Cheese
Almond Flavoring
Sliced almonds (toasted)

Using a tablespoon, spoon parmesan onto parchment paper-lined cookie sheets. Make 12 mounds. Bake for 3 minutes at 500 degrees.

Mix ricotta cheese with almond flavoring to taste. Cut up apricots into 8 pieces. Toast almonds if not already toasted.

Assemble each crisp by spreading some ricotta, placing two pieces of dried apricot stuffed with a slice of almond.