Appetizer

Here is my final recipe that I created while at EVO’12.  It’s a Drunken Fig Crostini that I have fallen in LOVE with…

This was another of my FAVORITE classes at EVO’12. It was sponsored by Mizkan the makers of Nakano Rice Wine Vinegars and Holland House Cooking Wine and Premium Vinegars. We had an amazing lunch on the top of the mountain again, with the menu created by the amazing chef Jill Houk. She used the Mizkan products in all of the menu items and they were amazing.  After lunch we had the opportunity to learn from Kelly Alfieri from Martha Stewart Living all about the ins and outs of Pinterest {everyone’s favorite topic these days.}

My favorite part was that we had another food challenge for the class… We had to create an original crostini recipe from a table full of tasty ingredients along with the the Mizkan family of products. I immediately zeroed in on some…

 

• Fig Spread
• Wine Soaked Cheddar
• Apricot Jam
• Nakano Original Rice Wine Vinegar
• Holland House Cooking Sherry 

…As my ingredients for my crostini creation…

This is a super simple recipe that will totally wow your guest at your next gathering.  I spread the crostini, which is just a thinly sliced French baguette that has been toasted, with the fig spread. I topped it with a generous slice of the wine soaked cheddar. Now when I tried to find the wine soaked cheddar when I came home and tried to recreate the recipe, I couldn’t find it. I ended up using an extra sharp aged cheddar at it worked just fine.

I then created my apricot drizzle with a 1/2 a cup of the apricot jam, 1/2 tsp. of the Nakano rice wine vinegar and 1 tsp of the Holland House sherry.  I whisked that together until I has a nice thin consistency and then topped the crostini with the yummy apricot  drizzle.

The next step to the challenge was to plate the crostini, take a Pinterest worthy picture and send the plate and the picture to the judges. Now keep in mind, we had 15 minutes to do all of this in, so it was a reminiscent of a classic Food Network challenge. LOVED IT!!  Here is my Instagram photo that I sent in to be judged…

I ended up taking 5th place in the competition and was thrilled.  I won the fabulous cutting board that is underneath the plate in the picture above and I LOVE it.

So here’s my question to you… Do you ever cook with wine? Have you learned how to masterfully use vinegars in your recipes to enhance the flavors?

I cook with wine quite a bit, but I don’t drink alcohol.  That tends to pose a problem sometimes.  I don’t really know what kind of wines to use when I cook. I have taken to using the Holland House cooking wines because it really takes the guess work out of cooking with a sometimes mysterious ingredient.

I also LOVE to use rice vinegar to enhance all kinds of recipes.  You would be surprised at what you can do with rice vinegar to boost the flavor of a recipe without people even knowing that it is rice vinegar that is your secret ingredient. Give it a try and let me know what you think!

You’ll have to forgive me… I’m still reminiscing about evo’12 and all the great fun we had in Park City.  I’ve already told you about the food styling and photography class that I ADORED, taught by the White on Rice Couple. Another class that I attended was hosted by the California Avocado Commission and it was CRAZY in many ways. Almost as crazy as the guacamole recipe that my team came up with that night.  But, I’m getting ahead of myself.

First off, the class was at the top of one of the mountains in a small little restaurant at The Canyons Resort. Second, we had no power. Everything was being run on generators, and it was a bit dicey.  You had to ride a chair lift up to the restaurant and if the generators stopped… so did you.  We did the whole three hour class by candle light and cell phone flash lights.  It was a HOOT!! Our hosts for the evening were Mary Sue and Susan, the Two Hot Tamales. Both ladies have been on Top Chef Masters along with having their very own Food Network show a few years ago. They are also very successful restaurateurs and cookbook authors. Talk about champs and two ladies that I would LOVE to hang out with more.

img source /// cafe johnsonia

We started the evening with a Top Chef challenge of our very own.  We had to come up with a non-traditional guacamole recipe with a team of three other bloggers. There was a table set-up with about 30-40 different ingredients that we could use.  The challenge that night, was trying to figure out what the ingredients were in the dark.  We pulled out our iPhone flashlights and went to work.  My team decided to make an Italian style guacamole with these roughly ingredients.

• avocado
• garlic
• onion
• capers
• red wine vinegar
• sundried tomatoes
• bacon

Now, being a guacamole purest I was a little skeptical, but it turned out aaaamazing. It was so fun to see what everyone came up with.  Other teams had tropical style guac with pineapple and passion fruit, another team had bad a@* guacamole {I think they actually won the competition.} We had breakfast guacamole with hard boiled egg and bacon in it. You name it, some one created it.  It was so fun!

Since then, all of us bloggers have been chatting on Twitter and decided we all needed to recreate our crazy concoctions and post them on our blogs for you guys to try out. So… Here you have my modified version of our Guacamole Italiano!

Guacamole Italiano Crostini Recipe

2 ripe avocados

2 cloves of garlic

2 tablespoons of shallot

2 tablespoons of sundried tomato pesto

2 tablespoons of capers

2 tablespoons of parmesan cheese

2 teaspoons of red wine vinegar

salt & pepper to taste

Cut avocados in half, discard seed and remove flesh into a small bowl and set aside. Finely dice the garlic on a cutting board, sprinkle with course salt and mash into a paste with the back of your chef’s knife.

Finely mince the shallot and place in the avocado bowl with the garlic, sundried tomato pesto, capers, parmesan cheese, red wine vinegar, salt and pepper.

With the back of a fork gently mash the mixture together. At this point it’s your choice. Do you like your guacamole chucky or smooth? I’m an in between kind of girl.  I like a good smooth, yet a little chunky guac. Serve with crusty crostini on the side… This is Italian anyways. It just seams wrong to serve it with tortilla chips.

Soooo, what do you think? Is this something you would try. Maybe you would like to make up your own style of guacamole? That’s the lovely thing about avocados… They are a lovely blank canvas. They are like the veggie worlds answer to bacon… Almost everything is better with avocados, don’t you think?

Here are a few more of the crazy guac concoctions for you guys to check out from that night!