Sunday, November 23, 2008

Baked garlic appetizer

My friend, who is a fine cook, brought this delicious concoction of sun dried tomatoes, garlic and goat cheese to a party. The recipe will now be a regular feature at my cocktail parties and dinners. In fact, I may make some for Thanksgiving in order to keep the guests happy and in the living room while I'm finishing the gravy and getting the food ready for the table.

Baked garlic appetizer:

4 heads garlic (not cloves, but whole heads)
2 cups chicken broth
2 cups sundried tomatoes, or a little less (I use the no-oil, no-salt kind)
1-3 tbs. herbs
6 ozs. goat cheese

Preheat oven to 375. Cut top 1/4 inch off garlic heads, peel off loose outer skin. Place heads of garlic in casserole or baking dish just large enough to hold them. Nestle the sun dried tomatoes in around the garlic and pour chicken broth over and sprinkle with herbs. Bake for roughly an hour and fifteen minutes, basting every fifteen minutes or so. Slice goat cheese, place over top of garlic and tomatoes, bake until cheese is melted. Serve with slices of baguette or rice crackers for the gluten free crowd or a spoon if no one is looking!

7 comments:

Vera said...

so....the garlic stays in its paper? the tomatoes are whole?

K said...

Yes. The cooked garlic is soft and easily comes out of it's shell. You could chop the tomatoes but a whole one looks nice on a cracker.

Unknown said...

"or a spoon if no one is looking!"

Or if you have enough spoons for everyone.

This weekend seems to have kicked off the "holiday season eating" for me, even though none of it was holiday related. But the birthday, the going-away open house, and the post-movie-premier open house were all laden with heavy winter yum-food, and it was an effort to not pig out.

For all three gatherings I brought oranges and bananas. They didn't look particularly interesting or imaginative, but I wanted to make sure that there was at least one simply-nutritious thing on the table for me to eat, before I started throwing down the bleu cheese, the walnut and cranberry tart, the truffles, the brownies, the fresh-baked cookies, etc.

Vera said...

yeah, i imagined the garlic would be nice and soft...

so one would scoop up a clove with cheese on it, and tomato, then squeeze it out?

sorry, it sounds heavenly and i'd love to do it--i'm just trying to work out the logistics/visual.

K said...

Vera, you've got it. Spoon out a glob of cheese, tomato and garlic. Then mash it all onto a piece of bread or cracker removing the garlic paper as you do it. It's worth it. In fact, I am hungry for some now.

Christine said...

Are the sundried tomatoes the kind packed in water, or the kind that you find in a plastic wrapper in the produce section?

K said...

I think either would be fine. The ones packed in oil or water should be drained first. The ones that are dried should probably be reconstituted in some hot water for 20 minutes or so.