This recipe comes from a vegetarian cooking class I was treated to at Cambridge School of Culinary Arts. It’s a bit labor intensive, but overall it is a tasty and impressive looking treat. Colleen came up with the cute moniker (I just typed monkier by accident and laughed for 5 minutes to myself….ahhh, sigh) and I think it would be a super cute Christmas appetizer.
Stuffed Piquillo Pepper Crostini (aka Santa Hat Sammiches)
makes 7-8 crostini
Here’s what I used:
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1 large shallot, minced
- 1 tsp fresh thyme, minced
- 1 tbsp lemon juice (I used lime since that’s what I had)
- 1 tbsp honey (I would add more next time)
- 1 tbsp greek non-fat yogurt
- 5 oz goat cheese, room temperature
- 10 oz (ish) jar of roasted piquillo peppers
- extra virgin olive oil
- 3/4 loaf french bread
- 2-3 garlic cloves, smashed
- 1 bunch of asparagus tips, roasted in a 400 oven for about 8 minutes with S, P, olive oil (garnish)
- 1/4 cup blanched almonds, toasted & roughly chopped (garnish)
- olive tapenade (the original recipe has you making this from scratch…I bought some at Trader Joe’s)
Here’s what I did:
- Preheat oven to 400. Pat the piquillo peppers dry.
- Heat up about a tablespoon of olive oil over medium heat. Saute shallots and thyme together until translucent, about 5-6 minutes.
- In a medium bowl, mix the lemon juice, honey, goat cheese, yogurt. Add the sauteed shallots and thyme and stir together. Taste it and adjust! Scoop this mixture into a medium-sized ziploc bag, snip one corner (just the tip) and pipe it into each pepper. Set aside.
- Cut the bread into diagonal slices (cut as many slices as you have peppers). Spray with a little olive oil spray (or drizzle some oil) on the bread and toast for about 8-10 minutes. When the bread is lightly toasted, remove it and rub cut garlic over the bread right away. Authentic garlic bread!
- Spread a generous amount of olive tapenade on each piece of toast, then a santa hat, then sprinkle with asparagus tips and almonds. Stick your face in them!
