Last night my amazing neighbors got together for a progressive dinner!  What is a progressive dinner you might ask?  Here is the definition according to Wikipedia:

A progressive dinner (US) or safari supper (UK) is a dinner party with successive courses prepared and eaten at the residences of different hosts. Usually this involves the consumption of one course at each location. Involving travel, it is a variant on a potluck dinner and is sometimes known as a round-robin.

Basically it is a fun spin on the classic Midwestern potluck and a great way to spread the hosting love across different people!  Also from now on I am going to refer to it as a safari supper, because that sounds more wild 🙂

The neighborhood crew!

I was designated by my husband to make appetizers (which I was pumped about)!  I had been traveling all week for work so I needed something not too crazy, but the rest of the crew was stepping-up their food game so I also didn’t want to just buy chips and salsa.

I have been craving pretzels and beer cheese dip so I decided to give it a whirl!  I combined two recipes on trusty-old Pinterest (because ain’t nobody got time to home-make the pretzels).  The pretzel recipe was from the Pillsbury site and the beer cheese dip from Fox and Briar.  They turned-out great, and were even good for breakfast Sunday as a hangover snack 🙂

From Pillsbury
Ingredients:

• 1 can refrigerated pizza dough
• 1/3 Cup baking soda
• 1 egg, slightly beaten
• 2 tsp sea salt

Directions:

• Heat oven to 450 degrees
• Spread dough on a lightly floured surface until flat
• Using a pizza cutter, slice about 1/2 inch by 3 inch strips (roughly 9 width-wise and 4 length-wise)
• Roll each strip until it is skinny and slightly lengthened
• “Tie” each strip into a knot and set aside
• In a medium saucepan, bring the water to a boil and add the baking soda
• Drop the knots into the water (5-6 at a time) for about 30 seconds or until they start to puff-up
• Remove the knots from water with a slotted spoon and place on a greased cookie sheet
• Sprinkle with the salt, and bake 10-12 minutes until golden brown

Cut the dough into strips

“tie” into a knot

Place into boiling water for about 30 minutes until puffed-up then bake!

From Fox and Briar
Ingredients:

• 4 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 3/4 cup grated white cheddar
• 3/4 grated mozzarella, divided
• 1/4 Cup beer of choice (I used Wisconsin’s finest Spotted Cow so I could finish it while cooking :))
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• a few dashes of hot sauce

Directions:

• Heat oven to 350 degrees
• Combine the cream cheese, white cheddar cheese, 1/2 cup of the mozzarella, beer, garlic powder, and hot sauce (using a mixer is the easiest)
• Transfer to an oven-safe baking dish and top with the remaining 1/4 cup mozzarella
• Bake 15 minutes or until top is melted and started to brown

Enjoy!