Baked Figs and Goat Cheese with Caramelized Onions and Pecans

Deep Run Roots

I really love fresh figs, and they grow so well here in North Carolina that I really wish I weren't allergic. If they're cooked, like in this recipe, I can eat more than when they're fresh, but they still make my mouth feel funny. So sad. I could never make the most of the harvest if I grew them myself; I can hardly use the ones our neighbor shares with us!

If you don't like goat cheese, like my husband, I think a mild blue cheese would also be good in this. Or, whatever creamy, melty cheese you like would be fine I am sure! If you have frozen figs, you could likely use those, or slice up dried figs and soak them in hot water for a while.

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[00:00]: [Music]
[00:04]: hello and welcome to cooking the books
[00:06]: with Heather today it is fig season and
[00:09]: we are going to be making
[00:11]: baked figs and goat cheese with
[00:14]: caramelized onions and pecans from
[00:17]: Vivian Howard's Deep Run Roots cookbook
[00:19]: I'm hoping I can eat this because they
[00:22]: will be cooked I have a slight fig
[00:25]: allergy it makes my mouth feel funny if
[00:27]: I eat too many fresh ones so
[00:30]: same thing happens with pineapple but I
[00:33]: can eat like canned pineapple without a
[00:35]: problem so I'm keeping my fingers
[00:36]: crossed that the cooked cooking them
[00:39]: will will help me not
[00:42]: have issues anyway
[00:45]: so this recipe is going to seem pretty
[00:47]: quick because we've already done a lot
[00:49]: of the work
[00:51]: um
[00:52]: first we have sliced our figs a half
[00:57]: inch rounds so just sort of lengthwise
[01:02]: and
[01:03]: we're going to add some brown sugar dark
[01:08]: brown sugar for this recipe
[01:11]: we're going to add some
[01:14]: orange zest
[01:17]: try to get all of but yeah that's okay
[01:21]: and then
[01:22]: some orange juice which I have not
[01:24]: strained yet and it definitely got some
[01:26]: pieces in it
[01:29]: so I just wanted to
[01:31]: strain it now
[01:34]: and we're going to toss these together
[01:36]: kind of gently
[01:39]: if you see me poking at something that's
[01:41]: the dark brown sugar that I'm trying to
[01:42]: get to kind of
[01:45]: uh
[01:48]: stop being a single clump
[01:54]: so now that's done the next step in the
[01:58]: recipe is to make caramelized onions uh
[02:02]: I did that before this because I've done
[02:06]: it before I've made at least two
[02:08]: different caramelized onions recipe
[02:09]: caramelized onion recipes
[02:12]: one from It's Always freezer season and
[02:15]: one from
[02:17]: her book
[02:20]: this will make it taste good that's the
[02:22]: name and that was called R-rated onions
[02:24]: so it is basically the same as that
[02:27]: except
[02:29]: there's definitely salt in it I mean
[02:31]: it's the amounts here enlisted in the
[02:33]: recipe but you know it's caramelized
[02:34]: onions with salt and with some finely
[02:39]: chopped fresh Rosemary
[02:41]: that's that's all it is really if you
[02:44]: already have some like uh you you would
[02:48]: if you made the R-rated onions and you
[02:50]: made a whole big batch of them you can
[02:53]: just use half a cup of those because and
[02:57]: add a little Rosemary because she says
[02:59]: when these have cooked it will end up
[03:01]: being about a half a cup I did this in
[03:04]: my 10 inch cast iron skillet and those
[03:07]: are here and I'm calling them done
[03:10]: they're decent they're not all
[03:12]: caramelized but they're also not burnt
[03:13]: which was great
[03:15]: and they took longer than she says she
[03:17]: says 10 minutes
[03:20]: and then another
[03:24]: uh uh 15 to 20 I'm sure it took longer
[03:27]: than that but I just didn't keep track
[03:28]: because we were doing so much other
[03:29]: stuff
[03:30]: they always take longer than that
[03:32]: that's just a thing we've talked about
[03:35]: that before now we're going to stir
[03:38]: our fig mixture into the onions and
[03:42]: thoroughly combine them
[03:48]: foreign
[03:51]: so this will be like sweet and savory
[03:55]: which you know just kind of sounds
[03:57]: delicious to me
[04:02]: all right
[04:03]: and now
[04:05]: we're going to transfer this into a two
[04:08]: quart baking dish mine is a little bit
[04:10]: bigger but that will be fine
[04:14]: I went with the round one
[04:17]: but whatever you have will be fine
[04:22]: okay so now I'm just going to kind of
[04:25]: spread this a lot out along the bottom
[04:28]: so it's pretty even and we did not
[04:31]: grease this or anything so
[04:35]: we'll see what happens there there's a
[04:37]: little bit of butter in the uh in the
[04:40]: onions that we cooked but not a whole
[04:42]: lot
[04:43]: and there's one more thing before we put
[04:46]: this in the oven and that is goat cheese
[04:48]: so let me go get that okay
[04:50]: so what I'm gonna do is sort of
[04:53]: crumble
[04:55]: this over top
[04:59]: and I'm going to need a little more than
[05:01]: half
[05:04]: of this log
[05:09]: and the funny thing is my husband who as
[05:12]: I have said a million times on this
[05:14]: channel does not like goat cheese is the
[05:18]: one who said that we should
[05:20]: make this recipe
[05:23]: I'm not entirely sure why
[05:27]: but I am not going to
[05:30]: complain about that
[05:34]: okay I think that is plenty we are
[05:37]: almost covered with our goat cheese and
[05:40]: so she says sort of
[05:42]: press it down a little bit either with
[05:44]: your hands or with the back of a spoon
[05:46]: to kind of make sure they
[05:48]: come together and marry a little bit so
[05:50]: it's not just
[05:53]: completely separate
[05:55]: and
[05:57]: that's I'm gonna wash my hands and then
[05:59]: we're going to put this in a 375 degree
[06:02]: oven
[06:04]: uncovered
[06:06]: for 30 minutes in the middle so
[06:09]: we'll see you back in about 30 minutes
[06:11]: our baked figs have just come out of the
[06:13]: oven they were in there for 30 minutes
[06:15]: it was bubbly around the edges the
[06:18]: there's no
[06:20]: um real melting of the cheese maybe
[06:22]: looks a little softer there's no real
[06:26]: Browning of the cheese but we're going
[06:28]: to call that good now this is supposed
[06:30]: to be the salt and butter roasted pecans
[06:35]: but it's not we've made those before you
[06:38]: can use those
[06:40]: but and I will link that up here it's
[06:43]: one of my favorite or one of my most
[06:45]: watched recipes especially in the winter
[06:48]: which is when we usually make it
[06:50]: we already had some vivs addiction which
[06:53]: I'll also link up here from the peach
[06:56]: recipe that we made recently so I'm just
[06:58]: going to use some of that because I
[07:00]: thought it would be good
[07:03]: roughly chopped
[07:13]: there we go
[07:15]: we will eat these
[07:17]: anytime and my husband
[07:21]: does not like goat cheese says that it
[07:23]: will be better
[07:24]: with some pork so we're putting some I'm
[07:28]: going to I've crisped up some prosciutto
[07:30]: also from
[07:32]: the peach recipe that I made recently
[07:35]: and I'm just going to
[07:38]: scatter that on top which is you know
[07:40]: something else that she says you could
[07:42]: do this instead of the pecans but
[07:45]: or use both so we are using both I think
[07:50]: a couple of pieces
[07:53]: will probably be plenty
[07:56]: maybe you want more
[07:59]: my baking sheet fits six so that's what
[08:02]: I did
[08:03]: there we go now we're gonna let this sit
[08:06]: for about five minutes
[08:08]: spread it on crostini and we're all done
[08:11]: so while that cools off a little bit and
[08:14]: our crostini is
[08:16]: um
[08:17]: Browning up in the oven a bit I'm gonna
[08:19]: wash my hands
[08:21]: and take some pictures and we'll let you
[08:24]: know what we think in just a minute
[08:27]: foreign
[08:34]: cooking the books with Heather you
[08:36]: watched me make baked figs and goat
[08:38]: cheese with caramelized onions and
[08:40]: pecans from Vivian Howard's Deep Run
[08:43]: Roots cookbook
[08:45]: so we
[08:47]: made this
[08:49]: dead of fig season so we had a lot of
[08:52]: figs from our neighbor's tree he's got a
[08:55]: huge tree and is so nice to share with
[08:58]: us
[08:58]: so we made this and shared some with him
[09:03]: so that was good I think he enjoyed it
[09:06]: his wife not so much but she maybe she
[09:08]: doesn't like goat cheese just like my
[09:10]: husband
[09:11]: although
[09:13]: in this recipe he did say that the goat
[09:17]: cheese was a little bit uh
[09:21]: dulled the flavor that he doesn't like
[09:23]: was dulled a bit by the onions and I
[09:27]: think the sugar so it's a little bit
[09:29]: sweet and savory and the goat cheese is
[09:31]: a little Tangy
[09:33]: I liked it
[09:35]: um I wish I could have eaten more of it
[09:37]: but I'm a little careful even with
[09:39]: cooked figs but I really enjoyed it uh I
[09:42]: don't think the kids enjoyed it and I
[09:45]: don't think we had
[09:49]: oh we did we did reheat it
[09:52]: a few days later when we had company and
[09:55]: uh
[09:57]: those kids also did not love it even
[09:60]: though they like figs and I think they
[10:02]: didn't love it
[10:03]: but
[10:05]: we did finish it up
[10:07]: it was tasty it was a good thing to add
[10:09]: to crostini to have a little sweet and
[10:12]: savory addition I think we added some
[10:16]: crumbled prosciutto crumbled
[10:19]: crisped up prosciutto to the top and we
[10:23]: also did not use the salt and butter
[10:25]: roasted pecans which I have made before
[10:27]: and we love
[10:29]: but there was a lack of pecans at our
[10:33]: the store we usually buy them at and
[10:36]: we'd already made a big batch of the
[10:38]: vivs addiction
[10:40]: and that was that was perfectly fine in
[10:43]: this context as well so
[10:46]: um all that to say if you enjoyed fit
[10:48]: Joy figs and if you enjoy goat cheese
[10:52]: this will be a great thing to have I
[10:55]: would certainly make this at a party you
[10:57]: could um
[10:59]: bake it up and put it on the crostini
[11:03]: and pass it as hors d'oeuvres and it
[11:05]: would be great
[11:07]: too messy but a little bit anyway
[11:11]: um so if you enjoyed watching me make
[11:13]: this please give me a thumbs up hit the
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[11:17]: me make something else next week
[11:20]: [Music]