Skew-symmetric Deliciousness

... a little engineering humor for ya! I made these on a whim for a friends BBQ last week and wow. Let me just say, there were a huge hit and were gone in like 5 minutes!! They are SUPER easy to make and are bursting with summer flavor. Perfect warm weather appie!

Caprese Skewers with Balsamic Reduction

Ingredients

• 1 pint red grape tomatoes
• 1 pint yellow grape tomatoes
• ~4oz fresh basil leaves, chopped into 1 inch pieces
• 8 oz ciliegine (small mozzarella balls)
• 1 cup balsamic vinegar
• olive oil
• sea salt/ ground black pepper
• crushed red pepper flakes
• skewers (I found that bamboo cocktail picks worked well, or you could cut down some wood BBQ skewers to ~4" long)

Directions

1. Heat balsamic vinegar in a medium sized pan on med-high heat til *just* boiling, then reduce heat to a low simmer. Continue stirring until reduced by about half. Take it off heat and pour into a heat proof bowl when it is a tad runnier than you would want it for a drizzle... because by the time it cools down it will become more viscous and be just the right consistency. Yes, more engineering terms!

2. While the reduction is cooling, construct the skewers. I used the following order:
                     - red tomato
                     - piece of basil, folded if needed
                     - mozzarella
                     - piece of basil
                     - yellow tomato

2. Garnish to your hearts desire! Drizzle olive oil, season with salt/ pepper/ red pepper and then finish off with a drizzle of reduction. YUM!