Cucumber Tortilla Bites

Filling Ingredients:

• small cucumber
• low carb tortillas
• dill weed
• cherry tomatoes (optional — for garnish)

Filling

• 8 oz. cream cheese
• 1 pkg. Good Seasons Italian dressing mix (dry)
• 1 or 2 packets of Splenda (to taste)
• 3 tbsp. sour cream

Mix the filling ingredients together so that they have time to marry. (Yes, they are of legal age.) Thinly slice your cucumber in whatever manner you choose. I’m using my slicer dicer. Halve the cherry tomatoes (or if you have cherubs, as I do here, quarter them lengthwise). Cut cute little scalloped round shapes out with a cookie cutter and spread the filling mixture on. (If you are cookie cutter deprived, instead slice the tortillas into 1 1/2 inch squares. Works just fine.)

This is important: If you use just one layer of tortilla and filling, the result is floppy. Not good. So, you spread your filling on one tortilla round, plop another one on top, then put a second layer of filling. Then it’s stable. Brilliant, even if I do say so myself!

Top it with the thinly sliced cucumber (one or two slices — your call). Place one or two of your tomato pieces on top. Then, sprinkle dill weed over the whole batch. Don’t put them on your platter first and then sprinkle. Too messy. Make the mess on your cutting board, then transfer. You can garnish the platter with more sprigs of dill and more tomatoes.

These are so yummy that guests will want several. You may be tempted to make them really small, but remember that you are somewhat constrained by the size of the cucumber slice. While you could cut the cucumber into a couple of half slices, the problem is that it then becomes messy, which isn’t good for a swanky soiree. In the picture below, I served them for a Halloween party. It was difficult to rustle up this many of the uneaten ones to take a picture, but you’ll note that I left the tomatoes off. They just didn’t look right with the fall theme. In the top picture on this page, I sliced my cherub tomatoes thin. Having looked at that option and the quartered tomato option, I am now ready to enthusiastically vote for the thin slices. They lay better and thus stand less of a chance of ending up rolling onto the floor. P.S. You can always “pin down” the tomato slices with a smidge of the filling mixture on the bottom side of the slice. Food glue, ya know.