Spreads

This is fantastic on fresh pumpernickel or rye bread for lunch; or spread it on fresh Italian bread to serve with light pasta dishes.

Spread this luscious concoction on toasted Italian bread or whole-grain crackers and serve as an appetizer or as an accompaniment to pasta dishes.

This is excellent stuffed into or spread on pita bread, as well as on crispbreads and crackers. I like it best on fresh pumpernickel bread.

Tempeh is a chewy, fermented soy food. For more information, see page 146. This spread is comparable to a curried chicken salad, though if you already like tempeh, you need not compare it with anything; just enjoy it on fresh wholegrain bread or crackers.

Serve as a spread on whole-grain crackers, crisp lavash, or wedges of pita bread. For more information on miso, a pungent soyfood, see page 21.

Smoky roasted eggplant is tempered by yogurt in this Middle-Eastern-inspired dip. This is good for spreading on fresh bread as well as scooping up on pita.

Customize your favorite store-bought jam with orange zest and Earl Grey tea. Use any leftover dough to make delicious hazelnut cookies: Just roll, cut out, and bake.

A grown-up version of a childhood favorite, this is delicious when spread thickly onto toast, inbetween cake layers, or when sandwiched in the middle of cookies—or if no—one's looking straight from the jar with a big spoon…

Chef Ashley Christensen serves this jam with cheese and thinly sliced country ham or prosciutto as a sweet-and-salty starter.

Earl Grey tea gives these easy preserves a subtle floral note.

Pair this bespoke ketchup with Grilled Rosemary Chicken .

Use smoked blue cheese to give this dip a subtle smokiness, though any good blue cheese will do.

Homemade marshmallow spread is so ridiculously easy to make that you'll chuckle at yourself for ever having assumed it was complicated. Making it also allows you to use pure vanilla extract, which tastes so much better than the fake vanillin flavoring in many commercial versions. This spread is superb in S'mores Crêpes .

Shelf Life: 2 years Tomato marmalades are the perfect partners for crackers, cornbread, or sourdough. They have a long history in the United States, where they were traditionally seen as a way to use up extra fruit during summer's long tomato season. Like tomato jam, they tended to be heavily spiced with cinnamon and cloves. For this lighter version, I have introduced saffron into the mix. The result is magic.

This jam is the filling for the Rosemary Cookies with Tomato Jam . I often serve a small pot of it to accompany a sumptuous platter of perfectly ripened cheeses, one of my favorite desserts of all.

Serve with sweet potato or root vegetable chips. The sweet potatoes can be cooked in a microwave in just 10 to 12 minutes.

Opening a can of tomato paste just to use a tablespoon or two for a recipe can be something of a drain on one's culinary resources—do you ever remember to use the rest of the can? This recipe is the delicious solution. Leftover tomato paste (from our Sausage–Stuffed Potatoes with Green Salad) gets puréed with roasted red peppers, walnuts, and garlic to become a luscious, deeply flavored spread. This easy recipe makes a lot, so it's perfect for a party. And it's so good that it's even worth cracking open a fresh can (it will taste just fine if you use the whole thing).