Dried Fig Tapenade

Makes about 1 ½ cups.

I live for fig season. But when fresh figs aren’t handy, I don’t let that stop me from getting my fill of these pleasant little flavor bombs. Try this on a cracker with faux cheese, on a hummus sandwich, or, if you’re a real maverick, ladled over nice cream.

1 cup chopped dried figs

1/2 cup water

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

1 teaspoon dried rosemary

1 teaspoon dried thyme

2/3 cup chopped Kalamata olives

2 cloves garlic, minced

salt and pepper to taste

1/3 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

1. In a small saucepan, combine the figs and water over medium heat. Bring it to a boil and cook until the figs are tender and most of the liquid is gone.
2. Crunch up the rosemary and thyme in a mortar and pestle. You don’t want big hunks of rosemary in there. (A coffee mill would do, too, but it’s more brutal than a mortar and pestle, so go lightly.)
3. Take the figs off the heat and add in the oil, vinegar, rosemary, thyme, olives, and garlic. Mix well.  (If you’re nervous about raw garlic, don’t be. It gets all mixed in with everything else in a lovely way. But if you’re really nervous, go ahead and roast that little clove in the oven for 20 minutes or so.)
4. Meanwhile, put the walnuts in a single layer on a cookie sheet and bake for 10 minutes, until just fragrant and starting to change color.
5. Taste the fig and olive mixture for seasoning, and add salt and pepper to please your palate. Add in the walnuts, which will make a wonderful hissing and crackling noise because they’re hot.

Refrigerate in an air-tight container for four hours or overnight. It gets better after a day or two, but I can never wait that long.

Sweet Potato, Green Beans, and Balsamic Fig Reduction Sauce

You wouldn’t know it by the weather, but the seasons are starting to turn. I’ve seen migratory birds and felt my own compunction to eat root vegetables. Thankfully, the last fruit of summer, my darling figs, are here to keep me in a summer-time frame of mind.

½ sweet potato

Small handful of green beans

Balsamic Fig Reduction Sauce (as much as suits you)

Several blops of creamy faux cheese (as much like goat’s cheese or feta as you can find)

Balsamic Fig Reduction Sauce (recipe below)

Sprinkle of fresh thyme leaves

Salt and pepper

Chopped nuts (I like almonds, but pecans would be particularly yummy)

1. Slice the sweet potato into 1-inch chunks. They don’t have to be neat and tidy. I like the skins, but you’ll be mashing these, so if you like them smoother, peel them first.
2. Trim the green beans’ ends, but leave them long. You could cut them up to bite-sized if you wanted to, but I leave them long for the sake of presentation.
3. In a steamer basket inside a larger pan with a little water in the bottom, place the green beans on one side and the sweet potato on the other. You don’t have to keep them separate, but I like to, for the sake of mashing the sweet potatoes. Steam the veggies until the sweet potatoes are tender to the touch of a fork. You may want to remove the green beans sooner, if you like them squeaky.
4. In a small bowl, mash away at the soft sweet potatoes. I use a fork, but if you want it smoother, you might want a potato masher or even a ricer.
5. Place the mashed sweet potato in the center of your serving dish. Array the green beans around it and put a blop of cheese in the center. You could do your own thing too, or just toss everything into the mashing bowl. It will still be yummy!
6. Drizzle the balsamic fig sauce appealingly around your plate. I was feeling like concentric circles when I took this picture, but you could do something a little more wild.
7. Sprinkle the darling little thyme leaves over the top (especially over the cheese) and salt and pepper the whole shebang to taste. Sprinkle the chopped nuts over the top of everything. You will be glad to have that nice crunch in with the soft veggies and sauce.

Balsamic Fig Reduction Sauce

This simple sauce is equally sweet and savory, so you’ll find yourself using it in a lot of different ways. To be honest, I don’t usually make such a small batch because, as you may already have noticed, I really REALLY like figs.

2-3 fresh figs (I used some HUGE Black Missions, so you might want more if your figs are small)

1 TBLSP powdered sugar

½ cup water (use more if your figs aren’t very moist)

2 TBLSP balsamic vinegar

Juice of ¼ lemon

2 teaspoons fresh thyme, stems removed

Salt and pepper to taste

1.  In a small saucepan, place the figs (I quarter mine first), sugar, water, vinegar, lemon juice, and thyme. Turn the heat on medium high, and stir roughly with a wooden spoon. You want to break the figs up a bit, so they release their precious seeds into the delicious concoction.
2. Bring it to a boil and then turn the heat down a little and let it simmer for a while, until the liquid is vastly reduced.
3. Using an immersion blender (or transferring the cooled mixture to a blender or food processor), smoosh everything up. I like to leave some lumps, as they bring me joy when I’m eating the sauce, but most of the sauce is fairly smooth.
4. Simmer it some more, until it’s reduced and about as thick as ketchup. Or until you can’t stand it anymore and just have to eat it.

Use over vanilla nice cream, veggies, slathered on toast, or over rice.

Variations:

• You could replace the water with wine (white or red) for a more grown-up sauce.

Fig, Sweet Potato, and Wild Rice with Piccata Sauce for One

Today is the second of my Fig-a-palloosa week. I'm obsessed with figs, and I'm showing the world, like carrying a banner! The trumpets blare, "Figs! Figs! Figs-a-figgy Figs!"

All of you who live far away, you make these recipes, but those who live near me, please just bring me the figs. All of the figgies! Hurry!  

1 smallish sweet potato

5 TBLSP wild rice

1 teaspoon vegan butter

1 or 2 cloves garlic, minced

2 fresh figs, chopped into ½-inch chunks

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

1.     Rinse the sweet potato and poke holes in it with a fork. Wrap it in aluminum foil and bake until tender, between 45 and 60 minutes.

2.     Meanwhile, boil plenty of water, add the wild rice, and boil, covered, until tender, also about 45 to 60 minutes. Drain the rice and put it into your serving bowl.

a.     If you’re going to make a sauce for this, you can do that during this cooking time. I’m using a piccata sauce that I’ve adapted from The Candle Café Cookbook. It’s included below. But it’s fine with no sauce, or with pesto, Alfredo, creamy avocado, Green Goddess—whatever you like!

3.     Heat the butter in a pan and cook the garlic and fig pieces in it over medium heat, stirring often, until the garlic is crispy and the figs are starting to relax, about 3 to 5 minutes.

4.     Free the sweet potato from its aluminum jacket and cut it into 1/2-inch chunks. Put them with the rice and add the figs and garlic to it.

This makes a nice side dish, or you could add nuts, tofu, seitan, or tempeh to it, and make a main dish out of it. Yummy! (You might also stuff a “Field Roast” with it for the holidays, as I originally found this as a chicken-stuffing recipe.)

It’s not quite as yummy with dried figs because it’s sweeter, but it’s still pretty good. You could also do it with ordinary white or brown rice, or Trader Joe’s Rice Medley that has mustard seeds in it.

Piccata Sauce for One

2 TBLSP olive oil

1 shallot, diced

2 TBLSP yellow onion, diced

1 clove garlic, diced

1 TBLSP capers, drained and chopped (if they’re large ones)

¼ cup dry white wine

1 TBLSP lemon juice

¼ cup water (or veggie broth, if you have a clear, unsalted, light one)

2 teaspoons unbleached flour

1 TBLSP vegan butter

2 TBLSP parsley or cilantro, chopped

Salt and pepper to taste

1. Heat the olive oil in a saucepan. Add the shallots, onions, garlic, and capers, and sauté, stirring often, until softened, about 2 minutes.
2. Add the wine and cook until it’s reduced by half, maybe 5 minutes, depending on how high your burner is turned.
3. Whisk in the lemon juice and let it reduce a bit more.
4. Add the water and the flour, and bring it back to a boil.
5. Reduce the heat and simmer for about a minute.
6. Whisk in the butter, parsley, salt, and pepper.

This is a great sauce over seitan steaks, rice, pasta, steamed veggies—just about anything you can think of! It’s just the right combination of sweet and sour, vinegar and spice.