White Bean Dip – 50 Women Game Changers – Donna Hay #31

White Bean Dip

We are now at week #31 profiling the “ 50 Women Game  Changers ” outlined on Gourmet Online. Mary Berger at One Perfect Bite and we fellow bloggers are having a great time learning about these dynamic women chefs, writers, and entrepreneurs. Welcome back.

 

Courtesy Donna Hay

At 41, Donna Hay is a wife, and a mother of three children. Some would describe her as Australia’s counterpart to Martha Stewart. Donna became interested in cooking at a young age, and by the age of 14 she took over the reign of the kitchen and began cooking meals for the family. At 19, she became food editor at Marie Claire Magazine, where she worked for five years. Not long after that, she convinced Rupert Murdock to finance the Donna Hay Magazine, in exchange she would post her column in his group’s magazine. John Hartigan, her publisher and boss, calls her “one tough cookie.” Like Marta Stewart, she has made business out of her name. She has a television show, a multitude of books she’s written, a Donna Hay kitchen product line, and her magazine reaches 82 countries, and is the top-selling international food magazine in the US, and it has over 384,000 Australian subscribers. You have to be a “one tough cookie” to get that far.

The white bean dip recipe below is courtesy the Donna Hay website. I followed her suggestion to add lemon juice (1 tablespoon) and smoked Spanish paprika sprinkled over the top of the dip. I also splashed it with a bit of olive oil. The only significant change I made to the recipe was to used home cooked navy beans instead of canned cannellini beans. I always use home cooked beans as a healthy choice, and cannellini beans are more difficult to find. It was also necessary to add about 3 tablespoons of cooking liquid so the dip would be creamier and less stiff; water can be used as well.

Servings: 4 to 6

Yield: 2-1/4 cups

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

1 x 400g can white (cannellini) beans, rinsed and drained

1 clove garlic, crushed

1 teaspoon ground coriander (cilantro), cilantro

¼ teaspoon ground cayenne pepper

sea salt and cracked black pepper

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Procedure:

1)  Place the beans, garlic, coriander, cayenne pepper, salt, pepper and olive oil in the bowl of a small food processor and process until smooth. Serve with char-grilled bread, prosciutto and roasted capsicum. Serves 2.

* You could try different flavour combinations in this dip, such as adding spices like ground cumin or paprika and lemon juice to taste. Or stir through fresh herbs such as chopped parsley and mint. Serve as part of an anitpasti platter with cold meats and marinated vegetables or as a dip with baked pita chips, toasted Turkish bread or crunchy ciabatta.

Check out what the other bloggers have come up with for this week. It all sounds so yummy!

Val – More Than Burnt Toast , Joanne – Eats Well With Others , Taryn – Have Kitchen Will Feed, Susan – The Spice Garden, Heather - Girlichef , Miranda – Mangoes and Chutney , Jeanette – Healthy Living ,  Mary – One Perfect Bite , Kathleen - Bake Away with Me   Sue – The View from Great Island , Barbara – Movable Feasts , Kathleen – Gonna Want Seconds,    Linda A - There and Back Again   Nancy – Picadillo , Mireya - My Healthy Eating Habits , Veronica – My Catholic Kitchen , Annie – Most Lovely Things,  Claudia – Journey of an Italian Cook , Alyce - More Time at the Table