Guest Post from a Ghost Writer: Crostini with Fig Spread, Caramelized Onions and Gorgonzola

Kerriann Flanagan Brosky puts the normal in paranormal. Seriously…when I say she’s a ghost writer, I’m not kidding!

Kerriann is today’s guest blogger sharing a great recipe for crostini, but I simply must give you the back story before we get to that.

Many of us who love food lead double lives. I grow, cook and write about food, but in my other life I am a full-time college professor. Look around the food blogging world and you’ll find fulltime parents, home renovators, artists, poets, and more. But my fellow contributor at Edible Long Island, Kerriann Flanagan Brosky, a cookbook author, writer and photographer, sent my eyebrows to the ceiling and my jaw to the floor with her other profession: she is a serious ghost investigator!

Kerriann and Sal, co-writers of Delectable Italian Dishes

Kerriann investigates and researches ghosts and has collected some of her findings into two books. She is a serious historian. And, I don’t know what I expected a ghost investigator to look like or be like when I met her (Dan Akroyd, maybe? Who you gonna call?), but she is a regular person (only better-looking!) with two kids, a husband, and a love of the beach and many interesting things to talk about. She is in great demand as a speaker on the world beyond (Visit her blog for more on her speaking engagements). Having seen a ghost myself once, I am very curious to learn more about her investigations, so I anticipate more fun conversations in the near future.

Kerriann’s cookbook

She does very well in the physical world too. Kerriann’s crostini recipe, which she made for a recent Edible Long Island contributor brunch, is fantastic,. It appears in the cookbook she co-wrote:  Delectable Italian Dishes. Several readers requested it after seeing a photo of it in a previous post, so I asked her to share, which she did! So thanks to Kerriann for all this illumination.

Here she goes:

Imaginative Crostini

 Sky’s the limit when it comes to creating delicious crostini. At a recent Edible Long Island gathering we were asked to bring a dish, preferably one that represents us. My crostini with caramelized onions, fig spread and creamy gorgonzola came to mind. It is featured in my cookbook, Delectable Italian Dishes for family and friends, which I co-authored with Sal Baldanza, one of four brothers who own the ever popular Mr. Sausage Italian Pork Store in Huntington Village. Slow cooked sweet onions pair beautifully with Sal’s homemade fig spread. Melted, creamy gorgonzola adds a salty tang and contrast which rounds out the palette. It’s by far, the perfect combination and the ultimate crostini. After Natalia featured the food from our brunch in a recent blog post, she received several requests for my recipe. I am happy to share it with you here.

And here it is – a beautiful and delicious party dish!

Crostini with Fig Spread, Caramelized Onions and Gorgonzola

Crostini con Crema di Fiche Cipolla e Gorgonzola

Blue cheese can be substituted for the gorgonzola for a milder flavor

 Ingredients:

2 Tlbs. butter

2 Tlbs. regular olive oil

1 large Vidalia onion cut into thin slices

1 Tlbs. dark brown sugar

1 jar Mr. Sausage fig spread (can substitute)

1 6 or 8oz container crumbled gorgonzola (or you can crumble your own from a wedge of cheese – I like this better. It’s creamier.)

1 long seedless French bread

Melt butter with the oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. When hot, add thin sliced onion and stir to coat. Cook over medium-high heat for ten minutes. Add brown sugar and stir well until melted and all the onions are coated. Lower heat to low-medium and slow cook onions, stirring often for 35 – 45 minutes. Onions will greatly shrink in size; they will be moist and caramelized.

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees half-way through onion cooking time.

While onions are cooking, diagonally slice French bread into ¼ inch slices. Spray two cookie sheets to coat with an olive oil-based cooking spray. Arrange slices among the two sheets. Lightly spray toasts. Bake in 350 oven for five minutes. Remove from oven and cool slightly.

Using a butter knife, carefully spread about 1 Tbls. fig spread on bottom side of crostini, which will be somewhat crispier than the top. When put back into the oven, the top side will crisp. Note: the fig spread is very thick. When spreading on toasts, be careful not to break the toast in half.

When onions are cooked, spoon 1 tsp. onions on each fig-covered crostini. Put about a teaspoonful of cheese over onion mixture. Bake until cheese is melted, about ten minutes. Serve warm.

Makes 2 dozen.

Tags: cooking, crostini, figs, food, ghosts, Kerriann Flanagan Brosky, recipes