Need canapé inspiration please

[diedandgonetodevon]

What are your favourite canapés?
I need four or five good ideas for a pre-ball reception and I'm completely out of inspiration.
Am fed up of smoked salmon blinis and mini-yorkshire puds and roast beef. They are everywhere and it's time for a change!

Friend of mine once served us quail eggs with mixed coarse-ground salt & black pepper to dip. Very delicious, but would be expensive depending on how many you're catering for.
I also really like mini bruschettas with olive tapenade and a bit of something else on top (asparagus, sun-dried tomato, goat cheese, whatever). Or small cubes of tortilla (Spanish onion and potato omelette). Am vegetarian so don't go for roast beef etc!

Look in the snacks section of mn recipes

cheese and pineapple hedgehogs!

little thai fish cakes with dip.

but can't beat primula cheese spread on tuc biscuits

stuffed vine leaves

Oooh, a ball! Sounds like you want to be posh.

A plate of asparagus spears / bread sticks / two or three cooked but chillled tiny green beans wrapped in parma ham

Something served with salsa verde for dipping (salsa verde = lots of parsley, half the amount of mint, some dijon mustard, lemon, anchovies, capers, salt and pepper whizzed up). You could try tiny new potatoes that you've roasted; slivers of cold rare roast beef or poached chicken.

miniature corn and ricotta fritters (eggs, ricotta, flour, sweetcorn, lots of black pepper, a dash of milk, plus maybe a touch of chilli powder) plus shop bought sweet chilli sauce for dipping.

Chicken ceasar salad mix served on dollops on little gem lettuce leaves with a peeling of parmesan.

Most of this you can do in advance and heat up as necessary (fritters, potatoes). Whatever you do you need to make sure there is some balast so people don't get too pissed beforehand.

My favourite canapé at the moment is baby fried breakfasts. You do a slice of good bread, toasted in the oven so dry like bruschetta and cut into triangles with a little butter on it, then a little slice of bacon or that very thin pancetta frizzled until crisp, followed by half a roasted cherry tomato and a fried or poached quails egg (you need the yolk to be hardish), all held together with a cocktail stick. It is just as nice cold as it is hot. Hot requires intensive kitchen work but cold is easy as pie.

Ooh there are some great ideas here- thank you!

I'm loving the mini-breakfast idea. That should help soak up some of the booze