Chianti

Agreed!

That will have to be for hubby. I can no longer drink red wine. :(

Getting awfully close to dinner time here, so this is likely too late. What time zone are you?

Maybe some broiled or roasted chicken with herbs &/or spices?

FWIW, I'm making a 1 pan roasted dinner with marinated chicken drumsticks and veggies tonight. I usually marinate the legs with lots of chopped fresh herbs, S&P, garlic and lime juice, but tonight I'm trying Trader Joe's Chili Lime seasoning with some fresh garlic. I like to make several deep cuts randomly around each leg to help get the seasoning in there better. I buy Trader Joe's organic drumsticks, they're very inexpensive, nutritious and easy to make fast dinners with.

Arancini and meatballs might be fun! Spinach balls too. Marbles for dinner! :)

I'm not sure what night I'm going to make the arancini. We had corned beef and cabbage tonight, that's what hubs wanted. I'm thinking Tues. at the earliest for the arancini. Or Thurs. Didn't think about chicken, that would be good. We have that a lot.

Chicken would be good.

Or, if you have leftovers, you can make the rice, corned beef (chopped) and cabbage (chopped) into croquettes. Basically like arancini but with extra ingredients. That could be awesome. With a mustard sauce, pickles and either greens or a salad.

Isn't it a starter?

My go-to for leftover rice is fried rice.

Islay - Is there a difference between appetizer and starter?

I would stay away from anything else starchy (including pea soup). I would do a simple grilled or roasted meat main dish - chicken, fish (sautéed tilapia if salmon is too spendy), grilled flank steak, pork or veal scaloppini, etc.

When I think of "appetisers", I think "little bite sized things that you pass around as finger food while everyone is still mingling around". "Starter" is "something a little more substantial served at the table on a plate that you need a knife and fork for".

Interesting Colleen - Seems to be a regional/cultural thing. Here you’d be hard-pressed to sit down at a restaurant and not be asked if you’d “like to start with an appetizer.” Just googled and this popped right up:

How about a minestrone instead of split pea? Maybe some pan-roasted chicken over a bed of caponata? Or a take on "involtini" -- stuffed fish rolls -- with a less expensive white fish wrapped around a stuffing of vegetables (batonets of zucchini, carrot, etc) instead of the more traditional filling.

Well, this is OT, but these terms drift around. I agree with Colleen as well as what FOAS's screenshot says for outside the USA, which also holds here in SoCal. I don't think there's really a nomenclature issue so long as everyone knows what you're referring to, especially if you're hiring a caterer. At a seated meal, you know the first thing they give you is the first dish, whatever you call it. :) Unless it's in an Italian-ish restaurant where primeri means pasta and segundi means meat.

So if it's on a Chinese spoon or similar, and is supposed to go into your mouth without cutting or biting, it's an amuse bouche. If it's on a passed mixed platter it's hors d'oeuvre, though that's out of fashion. Or pu-pu. :) Waiters used to bring them around, possibly on a cart, and place your selection on the hors d'oeuvre plate (or carried amidst the diners during cocktails). They may be three or four bites, have a dip or sauce, and range from lambchop lollipops to savory pastries to stuffed vegetables, or even a soup shot, but they should all be finger foods (if served at table they should nevertheless be eaten with a fork or come with their own delivery system, whether a skewering toothpick or shot glass or whatever).

Canapés were way way out for awhile, but they've quietly crept back in following the martini revival, and are almost always served to standing guests during the drinks hour. They have the advantage, if designed and made correctly, of not being messy. The word "canapé" extends to the canapé course but specifically refers to what's basically a one bite open faced sandwich. That is, there's a base of a small bread slice or toast, or analog such as a vegetable or potato slice, or pastry shell, and at least a "filling" which is a dollop of some kind of firm paté or cheese so something similarly clingy, and a decoration on top like an olive slice or nut half, but can have many layers. The canapé course can also include croquettes, tiny pastries like mini-quiche, etc., which are sort of like sandwiches if you squint, but it's rightly a subset of hors d'oeuvre. In use, however, some people use canapés and hors d'oeuvre interchangeably.

The only time we say "starter" here is when it's an actual course of the meal, and is basically a small plate of something that could be a main course if there were more of it on the plate. It can be a salad, fish course, or just a small plate like a single tamale.

Appetizer is the tricky word. In my own parlance, it's an exact synonym for starter, but I've heard lots of people call anything that's served before the main meal an appetizer, or sometimes anything that isn't soup/salad.

LOL!

Well for next time, I was going to suggest Tuscan chicken.