Name: Fig, Goat Cheese and Prosciutto Bruschetta
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 5 min
Total time: 10 min
Ingredients: 4 slices of good crusty bread (sliced 1/2 inch thick); 2-3 ounces soft goat cheese (chevre); 6-8 dried figs (sliced); 6 slices prosciutto; fresh ground pepper; 1 tablespoon olive oil; 1 clove garlic (sliced in half.)

This Fig, Goat Cheese and Prosciutto Bruschetta is a delicious but quick and easy appetizer. The sweetness of the figs, tangy goat cheese and salty prosciutto are a perfect match!

A new post two days in a row! I know. Some of you may have noticed that I normally post on Monday, Wednesday and Friday (with a little variation now and then). Don’t worry, I am not going to be making any major changes to my posting schedule, but this week will be a little wonky. Because there was so much I wanted to share and not enough time to do it! So this week I am posting Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday ( I have a cocktail post coming to you tomorrow just in time for New Year’s Eve!) and I even have a bonus post planned for Saturday! But next week we should go back to our regular schedule. And welcome to the reason that I just HAD to do an extra post this week – this Fig, Goat Cheese and Prosciutto Bruschetta. You guys need to try this.

Toasted slices of crusty bread, tangy goat cheese, sweet dried figs, salty prosciutto and a little black pepper. It takes just a few minutes to make and is a great appetizer. I make something similar in the summer with fresh figs, and I was lamenting that I somehow missed fig season this year (Horrors!). Then I remembered this little number that I have made before with dried figs. The beauty of dried figs is that you can get them all year, and they are super sweet so they are the perfect complement to the other flavors featured here.

Just a few ingredients and five minutes and you are set.

Have I told you guys yet that Mr. Briar and I lived in Arizona for a little while? Not long, thankfully. Also, sorry if you live in/are from/like Arizona. No offense. I just hated it there. I loved Portland, I love the Northwest and the desert is just not for me. We only lived there for a year and a half and then were able to flee back to the rainy Northwest. When we lived there, there were very few things that I would admit that I liked, but one of them was a wine bar called Postino. They had this amazing deal on Tuesday nights called bottle and board, where you could get a bottle of wine and a board of four Bruschetta for only twenty dollars. TWENTY! And no, this was not millions of years ago, only two, so it was a very good deal. One thing we noticed when we moved to Arizona is that they are VERY into bruschetta there. Pretty much every restaurant had some trendy bruschetta on the menu. And really, you can’t go wrong when you put a bunch of delicious ingredients on top of good bread and then serve it with wine, so I’m not complaining. In fact, I started making it at home sometimes too.

This Fig, Goat Cheese and Prosciutto Bruschetta is inspired by Postino, and is such an easy appetizer it is perfect for serving at your next party.

Be sure to use good bread here, because it is the foundation of this recipe. A good crusty loaf that is soft on the inside and crispy on the outside is perfect. We just toast the bread a little under the broiler with some olive oil, until it gets golden. Rub with a slice of garlic when it comes out of the oven. Spread on some soft goat cheese, top with sliced dried figs and then lay a slice or two of prosciutto over that. Sprinkle on some black pepper and serve. I like to cut them into thirds to make them easier to eat, since the bread slices are pretty large. This is especially good if you are serving them at a party, because it makes them bite sized and easier for people to manage.