Spicy Peanut Spread and a game day appetizer

"Hobbies of any kind are boring except to people who have the same hobby. " - Dave Barry.
When I moved to this country after my marriage, I had no clue about how addicted my husband was and is about foot ball. To be honest, it was very difficult for me to understand how a person can spend more than 12 hours straight watching a game. We couldn't go out on Sundays when there was a game. He was not a fan of one team. That would be far too easy. He watched and watches every game played by every team. In the beginning, without having anything else to do (I didn't have kids then), I started watching it too. At one point, I knew the names of every quarter back and running back, coach names, souper bowl winners' history and all kinds of related stuff. I still know the rules of it but don't watch it anymore. But eventually, I stopped watching and found things to do by myself. If I were into watching foot ball like my better half does, there wouldn't be this blog for sure.

We had couple of friends over for dinner on Super Bowl day.  It was  a small crowd and I kept the food very simple. I made this spread and made an appetizer out of it.

One Year Back - 
Ingredients:
Adapted from Peanut Sauce recipe.

Coconut - 1/4 cup (fresh or frozen not dried)
Green Chillies - 5
Garlic - 4 pods
Ginger - 1/2" piece peeled and chopped
Soy Sauce - 3 TBSP
Salt - to taste
Hot chilli sauce/ Hot sauce - 4 TBSP (or to taste)
Lime - 3 limes juiced
Peanut butter - 1 1/2 cups (I used regular. If you use natural, read Notes)
Cilantro - 1/4 cups packed

To Assemble:
Sesame Bagels halved and toasted in a toaster (See Notes)
Above spread
Salt and pepper to taste
Green onions sliced or any other crunchy veggies (optional)

Method:
Take green chillies, coconut, garlic, ginger in the blender and turn it on. It will be coarse paste. Add cilantro, lime juice, soy sauce, hot sauce and run it to make a smooth paste. You could add peanut butter to the blender itself, but I took the contents from the blender and added peanut butter into the bowl and mixed with a fork. Adjust the salt if needed. If you want to use this as a sauce over noodles or rice, thin it down by adding some hot water or warm coconut milk.

Take the toasted bagels, spread with peanut butter spread. Sprinkle with chopped scallions, a bit of salt and pepper and close it with the other half. Cut into 4 or 6 pieces and serve.

Notes:
If you are using natural peanut butter, go easy on hot sauce and green chillies. Also, add about 2 TBSP of brown sugar or regular sugar while pureeing the ingredients. Since the regular peanut butter has so much of sugar, I had to keep adding to get it spicy. Even then many folks didn't feel it spicy at all. If you are not using sesame bagels, mix about 1 TBSP of tahini to the puree and peanut butter mixture.

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