Simplified Layered Pesto-and-Tomato Spread

elegant lunch plateI originally made a version of this recipe from my beloved Beat This cookbook, and while I really liked it there were some issues. For one thing, dear Ann Hodgman, the author, has you make your own pesto and then drain it in a sieve to get as much of the oil out as you can–so you put the oil in, and then you take the oil out. You can certainly buy pre-made pesto, as I do, but be sure you buy it from Costco or some such. Regular grocery stores sell it, but it comes in small jars with big prices. She called for sun-dried tomatoes for the tomato layer, but she specified that they be dry-packed, not oil-packed, which are hard to find. The tomatoes were to be diced and scattered across the cream-cheese layer, which meant that you wouldn’t necessarily get any tomato in a small dab on a cracker. It never occurred to me that I could make it any differently, so I made it Ann’s way and people really liked it. Later on I ran into the version I’m posting here. and because the layers all have some cream cheese in them and are mixed in a food processor they’re pretty smooth. Then, I realized that the sun-dried tomatoes aren’t really necessary because they’re going to get pureed anyway; you can just use tomato paste. What you really want is the color and the taste.

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Debi’s Great Green Stuff

bowl of magic green sauce
image from https://pinchofyum.com/5-minute-magic-green-sauce

I got the original recipe for this dip/sauce/dressing from a monster cooking blog called Pinch of Yum, where it was called “5-Minute Magic Green Sauce.” It is totally great, but let me say that this isn’t really a 5-minute recipe, with all due respect where respect is due. It takes more time than that just to strip the leaves off enough cilantro/parsley to make a packed cup. (You can pack an almost infinite amount of small leaves into a cup.) However, it is well worth making. People scarfed this down at a reception like you wouldn’t believe, and then stood around the bowl forlornly scraping out the last molecules with pita chips. I should have made at least a double recipe. It’s really a combination of a type of pesto (the herb/oil/nut component) and guacamole (the avocado/jalapeno/lime component). Lindsay Ostrom, the author, says it can be used as a dip, spread or salad dressing depending on how thin you make it. It could work on a very sturdy salad with lots of crunchy ingredients and would be good on any kind of meat or fish as a sauce (my son tasted it and said, “This would be really good with beef”), with any raw vegetable as a dip, or with some type of neutral-flavored chip or cracker.

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Two Savory Cheesecakes

a blue cheese and a savory herb cheesecakeYou know what they say:  The reward for working hard is to be asked to do more work.  In this case, though, the work was a pleasure and being asked to do it was a great compliment.  A couple from the Chorale, Barb and John Wollan, asked me if I would be willing to do the reception for the small (ha!) recital that they were planning to give.  They’d pay me.  Oh no, I said.  Being paid makes things very complicated.  I’m happy to do it.  So above you can see the results.  I had been assured that the number attending would be 100 at the very most.  Well, there were at least 150, so I’m afraid that I spent much of the performance worrying that there wouldn’t be enough food.  It ended up fine, though.  We even ended up with a whole gallon of leftover cider.

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