Roasted broccoli and Sicilian olive dip

Roasted Broccoli and Sicilian Olive Dip

My first cooking class in the Flavour Town series was held on the weekend.

We had a great group and their collective minds were blown from the get go. I love hosting these classes and showing how simple cooking can be when you have great quality ingredients.I gave them the option to choose what flavour dip to make. We had beautiful roasted pumpkin, sweet, potato, capsicum, tomato and broccoli. I thought a romesco style of dip would have been the winner, but they chose the broccoli. So we got creative. I’d never made a roasted broccoli dip before, because honestly, I can’t go past roasted capsicum, hummus or pesto.

But, majority rules, so we got to work using our tastebuds and what sounded like a delicious combo. Here’s the result, it’s definitely worth the detour away from your favourite dip. Whip up a batch of these crunchy seeded crackers for the beginnings of the ultimate snack board.

Roasted Broccoli and Sicilian Olive Dip

Ingredients

• 1 head of broccoli

• 1 tbsp coconut oil

• 1/4 cup cashews

• 1/2 cup basil leaves

• 1 garlic clove

• 1 lemon, juice and zest

• 15 (approx 1/2 cup) green Sicilian olives

• 1/8 – 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

• 1/2 teaspoon coconut sugar or 1 date

• Salt

• Pepper

Process

1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees.

2. Chop the very end of the stem off the broccoli and discard. Chop into broccoli into chunks, lay on baking tray. Bake in oven for 15 minutes until bright green.

3. Optional: toast cashews in oven at the same time, for around 10 minutes.

4. Add broccoli to food processor with remaining ingredients. Process until smooth-ish consistency, I like it with some chunks of olives still evident.

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