Just my luck. Today this blog thing is set to be featured on the CNN’s “Eatocracy” Blogger Spotlight and what did I have scheduled to dazzle the world with? Toast. (Albeit toast with White Bean Garlic-Rosemary Mash.) Had the gods smiled on me I’m sure I would be featuring a mouthwatering cocktail or an impressive desert all lined up and ready receive the throngs of adoring Sis Boom Virgins but no…today it looks like I’m featuring toast.
Well, not just toast but “stuff on toast” but it is still toast nonetheless even though the stuff is White Bean Garlic-Rosemary Mash which is nothing to sneeze at if you ask me. Just not that exciting.
So there goes my ‘big break’. By not serving up something spectacular and garnering tens of thousands of new readers I won’t be able to quit my day job, move to Paris, and blog out the rest of my years (like some people I know). Oh well. At least I can afford toast.
Every Friday an email circulates around our firm with the subject: “Fridge Clean-Out at 3PM!”. The email contains a warning that any food left in the common lunch room refrigerator will be thrown away at the announced cutoff time. At 3PM there is a merciless trash toss tasked to eliminate the neglected pieces of dehydrated pizza, moldy sandwiches and containers of yogurt incubating new life forms. Unspoiled things must go too under this policy but that is the way it must be if order is to be preserved and room for our future is to be considered.
Come Monday morning people will arrive with new food and offer a compelling glimpse into their home via the sack lunches and Tupperware containers they put on display in the public refrigerator
For the weekly “Fridge Clean-Out” at home I do not circulate a warning email. I just do it when I feel it is time. Unlike at work however, everything gets one last chance to make it to the dinner table. After I deem the night “clean-out” I get to work going through and pulling out items setting them out to audition for that night’s dinner.
Some bloggers out there are masters of invention with their unused herbs, dressings, slices of bacon, pasta sauces, withering garlic cloves, unused diced pepper, a single new potatoes, etc. They have the ability to create new entrees, soups or exotic salads, give them extraordinary ‘foodie’ sounding names, and then take stunning photos to share with us. These, my friends, are the real deal. That’s just not me.
I usually just make “Stuff on Toast”. You might think it is lowbrow but even The Ina will put stuff on toast, call it something fancy, write it up for her book and then shoot it for her show. She’ll call it a ‘tartine’ or ‘smørrebrød’ but she knows that I know that this is just stuff on toast. So whenever you see it on her show or in her books it just remember it was probably a Friday and she had to clean out her refrigerator.
The key is good toast. If you take the time to make some really good toast you can put anything on it, call it something fancy, and dig in. I you can’t remember a fancy foodie sounding name just make one up. Now you are just like Ina. Maybe you can even get your own show or book deal.
Topping our toast tonight is a simple garlic rosemary white been mash. I wanted to use up some cans of white beans which had been sitting in the pantry forever and I had some rosemary leftover from some of the week’s oven roasted potatoes. A wedge of Parmesan cheese came in handy but any cheese bits and pieces will do; as will any herb, spice or whatever else you have on hand about to go to waste that can be chopped real small and added. I know you have something good.
White Bean Garlic-Rosemary Mash!
And Doristas, I finally got around to making the Eggplant Caviar for French Friday’s with Dorie. I had made it for some guests earlier in the week and…well..I thought it was so awful I pulled it off the menu at the last minute and refused to serve it to them. For toast night I messed around with it a bit but could never take it out of that ‘eggplant salsa’ vibe I was getting from it. I know this dish can be so much better so stay tuned. I’ll forgo the recipe here. Sue me.
When my husband asked what was for dinner I told him it was garlic rosemary white bread tartines and eggplant smørrebrød. He replied, “oh, is it clean out night?”
See why I love him?
This is what you will need:
- 1 loaf French bread, cut into 1-inch slices
- 1/4 cup extra -virgin olive oil
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 large cloves garlic, peeled, but left whole
- 1 sprig fresh rosemary
- two 14-ounce cans Cannellini beans, drained, rinsed
- 2-3 tablespoons chicken broth
- 2 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan cheese
- Kosher salt & black pepper
- Olive oil
This is how you make it:
- Prepare grill to medium-high-heat
- Brush both sides of bread generously with oil
- Season with salt and pepper
- Grill until golden, about 1 minute per side.
- In a large skillet heat olive oil over medium-low heat
- Add whole garlic cloves and rosemary sprig
- Sauté until garlic is soft and rosemary is crispy
- Smash garlic with the back of a wooden spoon
- Remove rosemary
- Slide off the leaves and mince them; return to skillet
- Add beans and heat through, stirring and roughly mashing with the spoon, adding chicken broth until desired consistency
- Stir in Parmesan, salt, and black pepper
- Place in a serving bowl and drizzle with additional olive oil
Notes
Serve hot
I did not know eggplants laid eggs… GREG
I think this post on toast has laid an egg.
happy to have discovered your delicious blog!
That eggplant looks like……well, growing up – Friday nights were always creamed tuna on toast. I loved it and still do. That eggplant looks like…. However white-bred beans are probably better for you than creamed anything, although beans DO have an expiration date. You might find that out early in the morning. Your grilled toast looks perfectly seared and this would be terrific with some garden rosemary! But that eggplant looks like….
Did you try the eggplant at least? I thought it was going to be awful, but in the end it turned out to have barely tasted like eggplant and it really wasnt half bad! It was flavorful and good in the time after you made it but certainly not by the next day. 🙂
Love that your husband “gets” the concept of clean-out night. Everything looks delicious, and congrats on the CNN spotlight!
1) Congrats on the spot light
2) I am impressed that you can get away with toast night. Sigh.
3) I thought the eggplant was better than I thought it was going to be, but I am pretty sure I didn’t totally follow the recipe… I am certain you will come up with a change up that will make it work for you. You can do it!
4) Nice toast!
Congratulations! I give you a lot of credit for making toast look this good, grill marks and all. I noticed that your white bean mash was lovingly garnished with Rosemary while Dorie’s eggplant caviar was served herb on top less, maybe it needed more salt;-)
Congratulations on your Eatocracy feature!
It’s almost a shame to put anything on toast that beautiful, but the white bean mash sounds like a great candidate. It’s too bad the eggplant caviar didn’t measure up for you.
Trevor, your reply to the first comment made me laugh hard enough that my daughter asked what I was reading…too funny. No, this post did not lay an egg…as none of yours ever do. Your toasts sound like something I’d be happy with for dinner…simple and amazing. I wasn’t wowed by the eggplant dish either.
Trevor, Congratulations on your CNN Spotlight…it is well deserved! I could do toast night especially with the white bean mash! Have a great weekend!
Nothing wrong with stuff on toast! Congratulations on your CNN Spotlight! You have a great blog, fun and interesting:)
Stuff on toast for me conjures up dried beef with white gravy on toast-yuck. Your stuff on toast is so much better-glad I peeked in to see this one.
Yes, maybe some day I will say I knew you back when you were a blogger before the culinary world whisked you away-but until then I will enjoy reading your wonderful posts!
You made me laugh! I liked this Dorie recipe, but I was on my own in eating mashed roasted eggplant. White bean dip goes over much better here.
Oh yummy, we eat white bean mash quite often, both on toast or as an almost instant substitute for mashed potatoes. It’s also great with fresh squeezed lemon juice instead of stock.
Toast for dinner? Are you trying to sabotage how your husband will look on any cruises he might be taking in 2012? You know that satin shows every bulge. . . .
I will confess that the toast looks delicious. I’ll enjoy admiring it from a safe, carb-free distance.
-bg
I do not understand how I missed this post, truly. You have somehow managed to make toast look pretty and much more than just toast. Mmmm, how about withering garlic cloves and dehydrated pizza on toast? Clovebrot! I too thought the eggplant caviar was wretched. Anyway, you will always be *MY* CNN superstar. xoxo