Make Your Own Fig Spread At Mom's Organic

Let's be clear: Mom's Organic Market isn't looking out for my health.

I went into the Jessup store Sunday to buy ingredients for a menu from Ani Phyo's Ani's Raw Food Kitchen.  This cookbook offers more medical advice that my doctor, but I was going to try a cauliflour mash recipe.

Seriously, this cookbook promises everything from more enzymes to fewer heart attacks, from stronger life force through soaked nuts to better-smelling sweat through organic foods.  This meal was going to be life-changing.

But Mom's Organic put fig spread between me and the psyllium powder.  A guy serving bruchetta -- sliced French bread topped with a fig spread, walnuts and crumbled goat cheese.  Delicious.  Sweet, tasty and crunchy.

By the time that I found psyllium (and realized that a bottle cost $11), I was captivated by the spread and the recipe that I had taken from the tasting stand.   Soon, I was standing in front of the bags of  dried figs.  Then the Valencia oranges displayed at the door.  Then the goat cheese.

I left Mom's completely infatuated with the idea of making fig spread.  It's cooked.  It's got sugar.  It's not a Super Food, but it is certainly super spread on a piece of bread.

Mom's recipe mixes dried figs, an orange or so, rosemary and black pepper.  I served it last night with some manchego and slices of Jim Leahy's bread.  My first batch is drier than the fig spread that Whole Foods sells in its cheese department, so it was more like pieces of fig than a butter.  But I love the mix of orange and rosemary.  Mom's spread tastes more fruity than sweet.  Tonight, I'm going to try the bruchetta on the original recipe.

I never did get the stuff for raw cauliflour mash.  I'll need to rely on Mark Bittman to cook up my veggies.

Fig Bruchetta with Goat Cheese
from Mom's Organic Market

1 1/4 c. chopping dried Black Mission figs (about 9 oz or one bag)
1/3 c. sugar
1/3 c. coarsely chopped orange sections (like Valencia)
1 tsp grated orange rind
1/3 c. orange juice (about one)
1/2 tsp. chopped fresh rosemary
1/4 tsp. fresh ground black pepper
1 1/4 c. goat cheese, crumbled
5 tsp finely chopped walnuts
Salt to taste

Combine first seven ingredients in a small saucepan.  Bring to a boil.  Cover, reduce heat, and simmer for 10 minutes.  Uncover and simmer five more minutes or until mixture thickens.  Let cool.  Spread on crackers or baguette slices, topped with cheese crumbles and sprinkles of walnuts.