April 2, 2018

Roasted Garlic Whipped Feta

Roasted Garlic Whipped Feta combines two wonderful flavors into one easy to make, convenient spread! Serve with crackers or vegetables as part of lunch, as party food, or as a flavorful snack!

Rich and I are still sorting out our lunches here, to some degree. We tend not to eat lunch with the parents – they eat earlier than we want to, and they like very small amounts of very precise combinations of specific food… We need more food, we prefer more variety, and – I fix our lunch a little later.

Sometimes we eat leftovers from dinner (somehow we keep acquiring tiny containers with a tablespoon of sweet potato or a quarter cup of zucchini.) Sometimes I make soup. And sometimes I fix basically what they ate – but add soup, or rice cake and hummus or cheese, or… enough to turn it into a meal for us. As the weather warms up I plan to return to our salad lunches, and I have found that having some sort of spread as an add-on makes them easy and interesting.

The parents like commercial hummus occasionally, so we have gotten that, but I have also made Spinach Hummus, and I hope to find scapes at the farmer’s market for Garlic Scape Hummus. (I understand they’ll be in season in North Carolina soon – but I don’t know if they are sold locally.) I have not yet made Dill Whipped Feta – I’ll do that when I can more easily get bunches of fresh herbs, not the little sprigs in the supermarket. But – garlic scape hummus? Herbed feta? What about garlic feta? (The parents love garlic – I end up using it almost all the time.)

All right – first – I wanted to use Roasted Garlic, for its sweet and mild flavor. (So then of course I had to show you my preferred way to roast garlic!) Feta is a little salty for them, and besides, they prefer rich cheeses – triple creme brie and the like, and feta is lower fat and dry. But I remembered that, when I first heard of whipping feta, some recipes called for adding cream cheese. I liked it without the cream cheese (especially when I could use Bulgarian feta – a sheep milk cheese that is less dry and salty than the Greek) but I want the parents to enjoy this, so…

Directions

First, of course, I made the Roasted Garlic. I only used a tablespoon or so in this recipe, and you’re not going to roast that little – but don’t worry, once you have it in the house you’ll find so many ways to use it! (I mean – I assume you like the pungent but sweet flavor of roasted garlic, or you wouldn’t be making Roasted Garlic Whipped Feta to begin with…)

Take eight ounces of feta (which seems to be the most typical package size) and put it in a food processor. Break it up so it doesn’t get caught in the blades. Add four ounces of cream cheese (and again, you can easily get that size, though eight ounces are also common.) And pulse to break up. Then run the processor a minute or so to blend.

Now add the garlic. I sort of mushed some and then measured it with a tablespoon. You can add a little more if you particularly like garlic… The tricky part of doing it to taste, as I usually recommend, is that the flavor takes a while to develop – you won’t really know what it tastes like until the next day. As usual, I therefore suggest putting in the smaller amount, to begin with – if it’s not enough, make a note for the next time. Also add a tablespoon of Greek yogurt – that adds just enough moisture to get the fluffy whipped spread.

And now run the processor. Stop and stir down after a minute, then run it another full minute. You are fully pureeing the garlic, and whipping the cheese. It will gather as a ball on the blade but should then smooth out – if it doesn’t, add a touch more yogurt. (For that matter, if you want a loose dip rather than a firm spread, use two tablespoons in the first place.) But once it looks like the picture below, it’s done.

Now, you’ll want to taste it right away, but you won’t get the full effect of the garlic. You want to make this hours – or better, a full day – before you use it, to let the flavor develop. Make it ahead for a party, make it the night before and carry it in a little container for a packed lunch… It firms up and sets as it chills, too.

Spread it on crackers, cucumber slices, it’s amazing on a sandwich with slices of ripe tomato, dip carrot sticks into it… Enjoy it!