Hey, dudes.
I'm Hilah, and today on Hilah Cooking, we're making crostini,
or specifically three different crostini recipes.
If you don't know what it is, it's like a little toast with some stuff
on top of it.
It's Italian for "little toast", actually.
It's a great snack or appetizer or snacketizer.
It's especially helpful when you need to say, "I love you", but really you
don't give a [beep].
Okay.
You'll need a baguette.
That's what this looks like, not a dildo.
I'm going to slice it about a half an inch thick,
no thicker than a half-inch.
Maybe more like a third of an inch.
I'm going to slice it on a diagonal, and that makes it a little bit easier to bite
into.
The reason I was saying this is good for, you know, if you don't really
care that much . . . You can totally care if you want to, but it's good to
use.
You can use stale bread for this, and you can really kind of top it
with any kind of combination of things that you have in your pantry.
So, it's a good sort of budget appetizer.
Okay.
That's probably good for now.
I'm going to just lay them on a baking sheet, single layer.
I'm going to spray these with some olive oil.
If you don't have one of these little sprayer deals,
you can just brush them with a little silicone brush.
I shouldn't have done that.
I was making a perfume joke, but I think I got grease in my hair.
Okay.
I'm going to put these in a 4000degree oven for six to 10 minutes,
until they're nice and toasty.
Oh, wait.
I forgot.
I'm going to sprinkle a little bit of salt on them first, and then
for the savory ones, I'm going to add a little bit of pepper too.
You could do a little bit of pepper on a sweet one also.
That might be fun, a little surprise.
Okay.
Now, I'm going to put them in the oven for six to 10 minutes.
All right.
We're going to start by making our spread for the vegan one.
I'm going to use some avocado as the base for
this.
Other ideas . . . You could use hummus or pesto.
I did a kale pesto recipe a while back that would be
really good.
Just going to mash this up.
I've got a little bit of lemon juice on it already so that it doesn't turn
brown.
Okay.
I'm going to add a little salt and pepper.
I'm going to add some fresh herbs.
I've got some thyme here from the garden.
Thyme leaves are so tiny.
Tiny thyme.
We can just sort of pull the leaves off of the stem, like that, maybe give
them a little tear, toss them in.
You can use any kind of herbs that you like, parsley, basil, cilantro.
Those all go really nicely with avocado.
And then, I've got some chives.
Mince these up in the most dangerous way I can possibly think of.
Green onions would be nice too, or even some minced
shallots
So, there's our avocado spread.
I'm going to put this on the crostini with some kalamata olives and some sprouts.
But for now, it's done.
So, I'm going to set that one aside and work on the
next one, which is a hot ham spread.
So, I've got some shredded, grated, whatever Swiss cheese here.
You could use cheddar cheese.
Add about a tablespoon and a half of mayonnaise and
some Colman's mustard.
I like this one because it's really spicy without
being horseradish-y.
Although, horseradish would be good too.
I'm going to mix this up.
You just want it moist enough so that the cheese kind of
sticks together.
That looks good.
Again, with the salt and pepper.
A lot of times, Swiss cheese is lacking in salt.
So, definitely make sure you salt that one pretty good.
And then, I'm going to add some fresh sage that I'm also
going to do a little chiffonade real quick.
So, all that means is . . . This works good for leaves like
this that are kind of big, like basil too . . . is you get a little stack
of whole leaves.
You stack them up, and then you roll them up like a cigar
or a joint, or whatever your pleasure.
Then, you just go through it like this, to make tiny ribbons.
Usually, you would use a larger knife, but this is what
I have next to me right now.
So, it's what I'll use.
Okay.
Mix that in with our cheese.
And then, just some regular old lunchmeat ham that I've diced
up.
Okay.
So, second topping done, ready to go on some bread in a minute.
Mm.
Mayonnaise finger.
Third is a sweet one.
So, a lot of times, a sweet crostini is a combination
of cheese and some kind of fruit.
In this case, I'm going to use some soft goat cheese.
I'm going to season it with a little bit of anise seed or
anise.
This is not star anise.
This is little tiny seeds, you can see, but they have a little licorice flavor.
I'm going to add a couple pinches of that.
Also, going to add just a little bit of honey.
Then, we'll mash this together.
Crostini are really great because you can experiment with a lot of different flavors.
If you've had an idea in your head of a recipe that you want to try to make
that combines some unusual flavors, and you're not really sure how it's
going to all come together, you can try a little small batch version of
it on a crostini, and that'll give you a better idea of whether or not these
two flavors are going to go together.
I know that a licorice flavor seems kind of weird with cheese and
orange, but I promise it's good.
Okay.
So then, that's the spread for my sweet one.
I'm going to use some orange marmalade and some almonds on top of that.
So anyway, let's stop yammering, get those crostini out, and eat.
My tummy's a-rumbling.
All right.
Our toasts are toasted.
You can see here, they're nice and golden colored.
I've got some back on a smaller baking sheet.
That's for the hot ham.
You just want to spread a little bit of this mixture on top.
Okay.
I'm going to put these under the broiler, just on low for just a
couple minutes, until that cheese gets a little melted.
Meanwhile, we'll make the other ones.
So, this is pretty simple.
I'm sure you can imagine.
For these, I'm just going to spread with a little bit of our beautiful,
healthy avocado mixture, top with a couple kalamata olives.
There.
It looks like little eyeballs.
That's pretty adorable.
And then, if you want, you can put some sprouts on top, or you can just have it as
is.
You can add a little bit of thyme, more on top for a garnish.
I like these little snow pea sprouts.
There are those.
Cute.
Then, for the sweets, spread with a little bit of our goat cheese.
It helps if your cheese is at room temperature and
not to use a fork.
Don't use a fork to spread.
Use a knife.
That's what smart people do.
If you were having a party, and you wanted to make a bunch
of these, you could make the toast ahead of time, and then let them cool
completely before storing in an airtight container.
That way, they'll stay crunchy, and then you can just
spread them before serving.
If you make the bottom spread something with some fat in it, like cheese or
avocado, then it will help them not get soggy.
So, a little bit of our marmalade.
Fig preserves would be really nice too.
Ginger preserves.
Then, I'm going to top each of these with a couple
almonds.
That's another thing to keep in mind, is when you're making crostini,
and you're coming up with your own variations.
Try to get a lot of different textures in there, as
well as different flavors to sort of play off of each other.
So, you've got some creamy and some crunchy and some sticky
and some wet, some tangy and some zippy and some spicy and whatever.
Okay.
Let me check on the other ones.
And they're done.
Be really careful.
Watch them closely so they don't burn.
If you're too irresponsible for the broiler, like I am because I burnt the
first batch, then you can just put them back in a 400-degree oven and cook
them that way.
It's a little less dangerous.
Okay.
Let's try these.
Oh, they're hot and melty.
So, if you like this recipe, also check out . . . I did a three ways with
grilled cheese and a three ways with quesadilla, if you like cheesy bread
snacks and lots of variations on that.
So, this is basically going to be my lunch.
So, let's go.
Mm.
Cheese and bread are my favorite things.
Oh, man.
I hope you try this.
Please leave a comment.
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And also, printable recipes are always available
at Hilahcooking.com.
Okay.
Bye.
Thanks for watching.