Wow, how truly creative I am… Put almost all the ingredients in the title. Splendid writing, Asli!

It’s summer, and it’s picnic time. What I love taking with me to the picnics is bread spread. Easy and light to carry, delicious with any bread. But especially a nice, crusty, fresh bread of course (well, that’s my choice of bread anyway).

And a spread is also usually straightforward to make. Generally, you put all (or most of) the ingredients in a food processor at some point, and you are more or less done. In this recipe, the only extra bit is the roasting of eggplant and garlic and soaking of sun-flower seeds, which only adds time, nothing more.

This spread stays in the fridge in an airtight container for up to 5 days (I tested, as I forgot that I made it). I got the inspiration for this recipe from a blog called Vintage Zest. I changed the measurements and added some more ingredients.

Enjoy this spread with your favourite bread! And have a nice picnic!
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Ingredients:

Difficulty: Easy
(serves 4)

Printable PDF-recipe (no photos)

1 head of garlic
2+1 tbsp olive oil
1 eggplant, peeled in stripes, diced and soaked in salted cold water for half an hour
half a jar of roasted red peppers (1 jar=350 gr net)
1 dl (1/3 cup + 4 tsp) sun-flower seeds, soaked in hot water for 2 hours
a large handful of fresh basil leaves
salt to taste (I used 1 tsp)

1. Preheat the oven to 200C. Prepare a baking tray with baking paper.

2. Prepare the garlic head to be roasted using 1 tbsp of olive oil, same as steps 2 and 3 in this recipe.

3. Mix the remaining 2 tbsp olive oil with eggplants (drain the eggplants first). Put the eggplant and garlic head on the prepared baking tray. Roast in the middle part of the oven for about 30-35 minutes, until the eggplant is soft and a little browned. Take it out of the oven and let them cool for 10 minutes.

4. With the help of a small spoon, take the roasted garlic cloves out of the head.

5. In a food processor, put roasted eggplant and garlic cloves, roasted red pepper, drained sun-flower seeds, salt and basil. Process until you get a nice paste. I didn’t make a smooth spread as I like having small bits to bite, but if you want smoother, just process as long as you reach the consistency you desire. Keep it in the fridge, in an airtight container. Enjoy with your favourite bread!