Tri-color Vegetable Pâté for The Daring Cooks Challenge

My first Daring Cooks challenge and I was thrilled to find out that it was French!

Our hostesses this month, Evelyne of Cheap Ethnic Eatz, and Valerie of a The Chocolate Bunny, chose delicious pate with freshly baked bread as their June Daring Cook’s challenge! They’ve provided us with 4 different pate recipes to choose from and are allowing us to go wild with our homemade bread choice.

As a vegetarian, I obviously did the Tri-color Vegetable Pâté and I absolutely loved the flavours of the three differnt layers. I have always wanted to make Pâté but never found a good vegetarian recipe. This one is a keeper! I did find the pesto layer to be too thin and the white bean layer to be too thick, so next time I'm doubling the pesto and halving the white beans.

And I discovered that I'm not quite there when it comes to making bread. I made a baguette, and though it was crisp on the outside, it just wasnt fluffy enough from the inside. Fortunately I had some store-bought bread to serve it with!

Well.....I did my first challenge....and it felt great! Hopefully I'll have better luck when I make bread the next time!

Tricolor Vegetable Pâté 

Yields one 25 by 12,5 cm (10 by 5 inch) terrine or loaf pan

Line your pan with plastic wrap, overlapping sides. 

White Bean Layer 

2 x 15-ounce / 900 ml cans cannellini (white kidney beans), rinsed, drained thoroughly

1 tbsp / 15 ml fresh lemon juice 

1 tbsp / 15 ml olive oil 

1 tbsp / 15 ml minced fresh oregano or 1 teaspoon dried 

2 garlic cloves, pressed

Mash beans in large bowl. Add lemon juice, olive oil, oregano and garlic and blend until smooth. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Spread bean mixture evenly on bottom of prepared pan.

(Note: I couldn't find white beans, so I used dry white peas instead)

Red Pepper Layer

7-ounce / 210 ml jar roasted red bell peppers, drained, chopped 

3/4 cup / 180 ml crumbled feta cheese (about 4 ounces)

Combine peppers and feta in processor and blend until smooth. Spread pepper mixture evenly over bean layer in prepared dish.

Pesto Layer

2 garlic cloves 

1 cup / 240 ml fresh basil leaves 

1 cup / 240 ml fresh Italian parsley leaves 

1/4 cup / 60 ml toasted pine nuts 

3 tbsp / 45 ml olive oil 

1/2 cup / 120 ml low-fat ricotta cheese

Mince garlic in processor. Add basil, parsley and pine nuts and mince. With machine running, gradually add oil through feed tube and process until smooth. Mix in ricotta. Spread pesto evenly over red pepper layer.

Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

To unmold, invert pâté onto serving platter. Peel off plastic wrap from pâté. Garnish with herb sprigs and serve with bread slices.

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