I decided to make something new for my signing at Omnivore Books a couple weeks back. Somethingtasty, tiny, and a little off-beat. I’ve been stuck in a bit of a crostini rut,and tend to make little goat cheese crostini with yellow split peas and chivesanytime I want to avoid the use of plates or utensils. People love them,they’re bite-sized, and you can make the components ahead of time. That said, Ithought it was time to expand the crostini repertoire and I started thinkingabout doing a version with black bread and liptauer cheese. For those of youunfamiliar with liptauer cheese, its typically a paprika-kissed, cheese spreadpunctuated by things like capers, pickles, caraway seeds, mustard, onions.Spread across a slab of dark rye bread or cracker, its the perfectaccompaniment to a pint.

Before I get into the specifics related to my liptauer experiments, Ithought I’d share a few pics from the Omnivore signing. Thank you all forcoming out. It goes without saying – it was fun meeting each of you, and Iparticularly loved all the little notes, handwritten recipes, and homemadetreats you left me. I have a couple more signings coming up related to therelease of SuperNatural Every Day, all with friends looped in. There’s the onein Portland with Kim Boyce. I’ll be at the RemodelistaLocal Seattle Market, and then with Lara Ferroni at herlovely studio later that evening.

On the liptauer front – I played around quite a bit trying to get this theway I imagined. People seem to use all different kinds of cheese in theirliptauer spreads – cream cheese, sheep milk cheese, cottage cheese, etc. Itried a bunch as well. Let’s just say ricotta was a bad, bad call. But I likedmy goat cheese version, so that’s what I’m sharing here. The consistency isthick, spreadable, but not too loose for crostini. As far as all the otheradd-ins, I just went with what tasted good to me. Try it this way for starters,and if you think you might like more mustard flavor, or paprika, adjust thenext time around. The kicker at the end of this story is this. I walked out thedoor to go to the signing – ice, Prosecco, purse, cellphone, postcards, goatcheese crostini – check. check. check. Left the liptauer plate on the coffeetable. :/ Continuereading Liptauer Cheese Crostini… 101 Cookbooks