We're eating salad almost everyday at the moment and though I'll never get bored of hummus, I decided to make something different, just for a change. This dip tastes wonderful and once the vegetables are prepared, it takes only moments to make and it's so colourful. Although I'm sure this would be lovely made with chickpeas, I've decided to make it suitable for the Specific Carbohydrate Diet by using haricot (navy) beans instead.
Adding garlic and plenty of fresh basil to roasted peppers and aubergines creates a true Mediterranean taste experience and mixed with some white beans, these flavours combine to make a very tasty dip.
These days, I prefer to use Golden Apple's Organic Wild Garlic pestos instead of ordinary garlic. They come in three varieties - plain, with hemp seeds and with pumpkin seeds. I used the pesto with hemp seeds in this particular dip (not SCD legal). If you are following the SCD and would like to try the raw garlic pesto, the plain and "with pumpkin seeds" flavours are SCD legal. If you can't get hold of it (it's not for sale in the United States yet) then ordinary garlic will work nicely. I reviewed the full range of Golden Apple products last year and it was lovely to find a box of their crackers in this month's The Vegan Kind Subscription Box.
You can find all varieties of Golden Apple's raw wild garlic pesto on Goodness Direct and also on Amazon.
Mediterranean Dip GF SCD
250 g cooked haricot (navy) beans
1 medium aubergine
1 red pepper
3 - 4 sun dried tomatoes
½ small lemon juiced
a handful of fresh basil leaves plus chopped leaves to garnish
¼ - ½ teaspoon Golden Apple Wild Garlic Pesto or 1 clove of garlic crushed
extra virgin olive oil
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
- Rehydrate the sun dried tomatoes by placing into a cup or bowl, pouring hot water on them and leaving for an hour or so.
- Set the oven to 190° C (375° F).
- Prepare and roast the vegetables while the tomatoes are soaking.
- First, slice the aubergine. Salting aubergines has been advised in the past to eliminate the vegetable's natural bitter taste, however the varieties grown today aren't as bitter and don't necessarily require this process. However, it does prevent them from soaking up the oil so if you still prefer to salt aubergines, do this when you first put the tomatoes to soak then drain, rinse and squeeze the water out after half an hour.
- Thickly slice the red pepper and place in an oven proof dish with the sliced aubergine.
- Drizzle with olive oil and roast in the oven for about 30 minutes.
- Tip the beans and roasted vegetables into a food processor.
- Add the garlic and freshly squeezed lemon juice. If you are using the raw wild garlic pesto start with ¼ teaspoon and add more to taste.
- Process until combined but don't over process, some texture is nice.
- Add sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.
- Garnish with chopped basil leaves.
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| Tip the ingredients into the processor |
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| Process the dip |
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| Enjoy with your choice of crudités or chips |
