New recipe – Carnival Party Spreads Giuliano di Lorenzo Medici*

A funny thing of my personal eating-biography is that I have always preferred cold dishes to warm. Even in coldest winter. This may have two reasons. The first is that my body always craves for vitamins which are of course much more in uncooked vegetables and salads. The second reason has another origin. When I am eating warm dishes I am literally burning up after about half an hour. If I have to leave the house then I feel very uncomfortably in the cold. Maybe this is a seldom reaction because most of the people like taking warm drinks and dishes in winter. But it is proven that the pores open widely and one is cold because of that. Third reason: cold dishes taste delicious!

• Ingredients for the red bell pepper spread (serves 2)

• 2 dehydrated organic red bell peppers
• oil
• 2 cups/300 g canned or cooked white beans (must be organic when canned or jarred)
• 1 garlic clove or garlic powder
• (olive oil, 1 tsp chia seeds)
• salt, pepper, paprika, chili flakes

Preheat oven to 125°.

Dehydrating red bell peppers takes a while, but it is really worth to do it. It tastes enormously good. As I have no dehydrator I do this always in the oven.

Cut the red bell peppers in small pieces. Grease tray or pan, put the cut pieces on it, pour oil over. Salt. Dehydrate up to 7, 8 hours (over night). I did it only 1 hour because there was a fault in the recipe. As I needed the red bell peppers for the dish, I flipped the pieces and baked it another 15 minutes at 180 degrees. It is better to do it the long time to get them dry. As my red bell peppers still contained much water after only one hour dehydrating I sieved and squeezed them and set aside.

Sieve the canned or cooked organic beans. Cut garlic and put beans and garlic in a bowl. Season with salt, pepper, paprika and chili. Puree with the hand blender.

Put some of the red bell pepper pieces in and puree. Add the next batch and puree until you get a creamy but solid spread. Repeat as long as the texture is creamy and solid.

If the spread is too liquid: add chia seeds, they will help to make the spread more solid (this takes only some minutes).

If the spread is too solid: add 1-2 tbsp olive oil.

Keep at least ½ hour in the fridge before serving.

Roast small cut walnut pieces in oil until they are light brown and start smelling nicely. Salt.

Find the recipe for the avocado dip/cream here. It is very easy and quick to prepare.

Serve on a plate and decorate with very best Party Crackers or with dehydrated crackers (you can buy them in organic quality if you have like me no dehydrator).

Find here more recipes for dips, spreads, soups and salads or use the “Search” function. There are still many recipes for a perfect warm and cold buffet.

*Raffael´s portrait of Giuliano di Lorenzo Medici can be seen here. Celebrating Carnival was a big thing in the Medici era. There were festive brigades and parades with allegorical scenes representing the Medici´s triumph over the centuries.