Belgian Endive Boats with Smoked Salmon

◔ Makes as many as you like. For a large party, start with about 10 endives.

⧖ 30 minutes or so, less if you can sucker someone else into squeezing the cheese into the boats.

• Belgian endive

• equal parts mayonnaise and cream cheese

• handful of chives

Get a bunch of Belgian endive, cut the bases off and make a bunch of little boats out of the leaves.

In a mini food processor, mix a handful of chives and equal parts mayonnaise and cream cheese until they're totally blended.

Put the mix into a zip-loc bag and cut one corner off, so you can squeeze little dollops into the endive boats.

Now put a piece of smoked salmon on top of each one.

Notes:

• Don't like chives? Use basil or dill.

• Serving vegetarian friends? Replace the salmon with roasted red pepper.

• You may have a lot of leftover endive leaves because some are a little bit torn, or kind of brown. Chop them up and make them into a salad. You should totally eat a salad right before having people over for cocktails anyway.

• You don't need as much of the cream cheese mixture as you think you do, but don't worry about it. The leftover makes a nice sandwich spread or salad dressing.