Antipasto Skewers

Once a month the ladies in my neighborhood get together to play bunco, a totally brainless dice game.  Upon reading this, you might be picturing nice little housewives all dressed up playing a proper game of dice.  I can assure you that it's nothing like that.  There's nothing proper about bunco night. 

Bunco night is our night.  We look forward to it all month.  The messy houses, hyper kids, broken vehicles, and numerous other problems and errands get left at the door.  For that night we let our hair down, we dress in costume, we turn the radio up loud, and we get our drink on!

Last Friday night I hosted bunco at my house and I made a few munchies.  These antipasto skewers were probably the all-around favorite.  Salty little bites of salami and pepperoni, smooth and silky balls of mozzarella, pungent briney bites of kalamata olives, marinated cheese tortellini, and gorgeous garden fresh cherry tomatoes all skewered together and coated in Italian or Balsamic dressing.  Serve these up on a bed of baby arugula and you have a really pretty and tasty appetizer for a party.  I also think these skewers would be great to pack in a lunchbox.

You can use so many different ingredients here (marinated artichokes, strips of roasted red pepper, green olives, black olives, salami, pepperoni, cubes of mozzarella, balls of mozzarella, basically anything you'd see on an antipasto plate).  Additionally, you can use any kind of dressing.  I used balsamic dressing on half and plain old Italian dressing on the other half.  Surprisingly, the skewers  with balsamic dressing seemed to go faster. 

These are great make ahead appetizers because the flavors do improve if they have a few hours to marinate together.

Antipasto Skewers

Adapted from Hungry Housewife

1  (9 oz) package of Three Cheese Tortellini, cooked to package directions
1 Large Jar of Large pitted Black Olives (I used Kalamata)

1 container grape or cherry tomatoes
2 (12 oz) containers of marinated mozzarella balls
30 slices of Salami, cut in half
60 pieces of pepperoni
1 cup Balsamic Vinaigrette Salad Dressing or Italian Dressing (store bought or homemade)
60 Skewers  (or however many you want to make)

Place the cooked tortellini in a bowl or large gallon freeze bag. Pour the salad dressing over the top and marinade in the fridge for a few hours. Drain the pasta. Place one of each item onto the skewer using the pointy side (I did kalamata olive first, then a tortellini, followed by a tomato, then a ball of mozzarella, slice of pepperoni, another tortellini, another olive, and then a rolled up piece of salami). The skewers look especially pretty if you serve them on a bed of arugula (or any other type of green).

Can be made a few hours in advance. Just cover tightly and place in the refrigerator.