Tuesday, May 22, 2007

My new favorite bread dipper

When I was in SF with Julie, we ate dinner at The Stinking Rose, an all-garlic-all-the-time restaurant in North Beach. While everything was yummy (and I reeked of garlic for three days afterwards), I couldn't get enough of the pesto relish that was on every table. It was hot, tasted of parsley, and verrrry garlicky.

Tonight I have a big jar in the fridge that I've shared last night with neighbors and tonight with other friends -- I found the recipe on the restaurant's site as well as elsewhere, slightly modified. And here it is:

Stinking Rose® Garlic Relish

1 bunch flat Italian parsley, minced
1/4-1/3 cup (or to taste, which is what I did) minced garlic
2 T vinegar
1/2 tsp salt, or to taste
Olive oil to cover

I whirled the parsley in the food processor until very finely chopped; ditto the garlic. Put it all into a glass jar, mixed it up, and covered with olive oil.

Is that easy or what!

It makes a great salad dressing, bread dipper, condiment for a sandwich, topper for griller chicken (or fish). The garlic is what gives it the hot kick, so vary your amounts according to how much you love garlic.

Carry breath mints.

I also made a dried tomato and rosemary foccacia, using tomatoes from the garden that I'd dried last year, and it was killer with this dip. And too easy -- do the dough in the bread machine, and it's very simple from there.

Did I mention that I love to cook? Well -- when I have a little time to do it and plan ahead. I don't like the oh-gosh-it's-7-p.m.-and-I-haven't-the-foggiest kinds of cooking, which seems to happen a lot. Lately it's a lot of salad from the garden, which also is featuring radishes and the tiniest green onions. You can't buy lettuce like this -- it's a good variety of kinds, so you get a peppery arugula in one bite, a juicy leaf lettuce in another.

Enough already. I'm hungry.

More magazines on the nightstand, and I'm working bit by bit on The Secret, but I'm nearly finished with JD Robb's Born in Death.

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