One day, when I am responsible for little people’s lives, I know one of my top priorities and qualities will be to instill several food traditions into my future kids’ lets-soak-up-everything-like-sponges brains. Let’s wake up on Saturday morning and make pancakes in the shapes of your name, clouds, dogs, and messy blobs. Let’s learn to eat and love vegetables. Let’s make every single birthday cake from scratch, special, unique, beautiful, totally delicious, and exactly to your liking. Let’s be known as the people who bring the best stuff to your school bake sales. Let’s grow up into people who know how to eat and recognize good food.
I’m lucky that I have a mom just like that. I wouldn’t be the food obsessed person I am now had it not been for her letting my sister and me know what it is to love and appreciate a wonderful meal that begins with good, fresh ingredients. And subsequently develop a knack for loving delicious tasting things. Things like black beans, rice pudding, white chocolate cream cheese cake, fish tagines, maduros, chicken marbella, and possibly the best of them all: a sun-dried tomato, pesto, and cream cheese torta.
My mom only makes this stand-alone dip once a year, for Noche Buena, aka the Cuban Christmas Eve celebration. I wait and anticipate it all year long. I start dreaming about it six months prior to Christmas, which is totally normal. She makes alternating layers of pesto, sun-dried tomato, and cream cheese, refrigerates it, and then serves it as a beautiful mound topped with pine nuts and alongside crackers or garlicky crostini. When people start arriving to our house on December 24th, this is laid out, and it is ravenously dug into. I sit down, spread some on a cracker, and relish in its deliciousness. I even save some for my Christmas morning breakfast, which is weird for this only-oatmeal-in-the-morning fiend.
Until my mom time comes, I can only soak in my own information about what to do to make a child that knows what’s up in the food world and with the universe in general. Good thing I have the best resource imaginable.
Sun-Dried Tomato, Pesto, and Cream Cheese Torta
Adapted from Bon Appetit Magazine, December 1999 issue
Note: I wish I would have gotten a photo of the untouched torta, but it was not in the stars this year. I can assure you it was much more beautiful than the above photos to begin with.
This is a great appetizer because first, you cannot go wrong with it. E-v-e-r-y-o-n-e loves it, even kids, and it will diminish fast, so make sure you try some when you can. It can also be made up to three days in advance and takes off some of the Holiday Season, or daily life, stress.
4 garlic cloves
1 1/2 cups (packed) fresh basil leaves
1/4 cup pine nuts
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
2 2/3 cups cream cheese, room temperature (about 21 ounces)
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1 1/3 cups drained oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes
1/3 cup tomato paste
3/4 cup butter, room temperature
Nonstick vegetable oil spray, like Pam
Fresh basil sprigs
Toasted pine nuts
Baguette slices, toasted or crackers
Finely chop garlic in a food processor. Add basil, 1/4 cup pine nuts, oil and lemon juice. Process until well blended. Add 1/3 cup cream cheese and 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese. Using on/off pulses, process just until blended. Transfer pesto to medium bowl.
Coarsely chop tomatoes in processor. Add tomato paste and process until mixture is almost smooth. Add 1/3 cup cream cheese and blend well.
Using electric mixer, beat 2 cups cream cheese and butter in large bowl until fluffy. Season with salt and pepper.
Spray 6-cup soufflé dish with nonstick spray. Line with plastic wrap, extending plastic over sides. Spread 3/4 cup cream cheese-butter mixture evenly over bottom of prepared dish. Top with half of tomato mixture, then 1/2 cup cream cheese-butter mixture, then half of pesto mixture. Repeat layering with 1/2 cup cream cheese-butter mixture, remaining tomato mixture, 1/2 cup cream cheese-butter mixture and remaining pesto. Top with remaining cream cheese-butter mixture. Cover and chill overnight. (Can be made 3 days ahead. Keep refrigerated.)
Invert torta onto platter. Peel off plastic. Garnish with basil sprigs and toasted pine nuts. Serve with baguette slices.
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OMG !!! I loooove this one. I miss it. Love you Ashley, missed you this Christmas hopefully we can catch up soon.
Isn’t it the best?! I miss you too, I’m here until January 15th so we will be sure to catch up!!! Love you xoxo
I just made this recipe last night for today and it looks so delicious!! Just one question, my basil mixture tastes very spicy, is that normal?
Hi there! The raw garlic makes the basil mixture taste pretty spicy. But when eaten together with the cream cheese and sundried tomato mixture layers, it gets calmed down a bit.