Bloomin' Onion Bread - an out-of-the-ordinary appetizer idea...

If you?re not quite the onion-lover Outback Steakhouse targets in their ads for the ?Bloomin? Onion? - this might be for you.  This is great for standing around and snacking as you visit with your dinner guests.  The aroma as it bakes is wonderful.  Don?t bother looking for a serving tray - it?ll be gone soon.

As you can see, I wasn?t successful in getting this warm cheesy bread onto a nice serving platter.  So it stayed warm by nestling in the foil pouch I baked it in.  (Taking pictures with your dinner guests milling around is pretty tacky - so these 'pre-doorbell' photos are all I could manage)

I hosted a ward dinner group of twelve people last night - after a very full week.  So I wasn?t in the mood to make anything monumental for an appetizer.  I pre-sliced the bread, and then I muscled my 18-year-old son into stuffing it with sliced cheese.  All that was left to do was mix together the melted butter, poppy seed, and green onion.

The hardest part was slicing that tough-textured sourdough bread.  One direction was fine, but when I went cross-wise - it was hard to hold together.  Thank goodness sourdough is forgiving - it didn?t tear or crumble.  

I had 2 hours to get this dinner together last night.  The ward provided the chicken, so I made Unrolled Cordon Bleu Bake  (thank goodness it's fast), and since I'm NOT a decorator - I picked up some begonias and popped them in ramekins for the 'table decor'...  And if you really want to know how tacky I am - I made my guests help set the table.  I had it this far when the doorbell rang.  (Nobody seemed to mind though - after all, it's a free meal and it's not at THEIR house!)

When all was said and done - nobody noticed the slightly uneven cuts. They only had eyes for the gooey melted cheese sinking into the onion/poppyseed/butter saturated bread cubes.  It turned out to be an out-of-the-ordinary type of appetizer that nobody had ever tried before.  ( And I almost forgot to mention I found this last minute idea on tasteofhome.com...)

But save it for when you have at least 12 hungry people - after devouring all we could - we still had enough to serve 6 to 8 more guests.

For this quick-to-fix, last minute appetizer recipe - go to: