Goat Cheese Bruschetta with Grilled Onions

Greetings all, this is recipe #20 in my quest for a year's worth of original recipes... I am certainly not the first to make Bruschetta, but I added enough interesting items to make this recipe my own. Bruschetta can be called a poor man's pizza, as it can be as simple or as complicated as you like. The original recipe is a piece of toast Italian Bread, rubbed with raw garlic and some diced tomatoes with a little olive oil. But, you can dress up with cheese, meats, veggies or whatever is in your imagination... so here goes...

...REALLY quick today, as it is another cooking day. 10 adults and a baby are coming over tonight for brisket, spiral cut stuffed Pork tenderloin (with a home made Raspberry Chipotle marinade), Potato salad and BBQ cabbage. One night, and nearly a week's worth of blog material, so stay tuned...

Funny story about last night, A brisket takes about 16 hours to cook (plus Texas Crutch foiling time, round off to 18-20 hours. I have a terrific smoker that holds it;s temperature well for about 8 hours without needing to replenish. So, doing the math, if I wanted to serve at around 6:30 PM, I needed to get this on a hot (225 degrees) smoker by 10 PM last night, and I would need to check every few hours. Anytime I do this, I always drink a full glass of milk before bedtime. That way, i will need to get up to pee in about 4-5 hours, and can check the smoker then. So, 3 AM comes, I wake up, I tend to business, and I went outside to check the smoker. All was as expected, and I was back in bed in 10 minutes. BUT... 15 minutes later, i was just nodding back to sleep, and my wife slaps me on my ass and yells. "WHAT DID YOU DO???"

Long story short, the neighborhood had one of those weird little 5 minute power outages. When the power went off, it turned a ceiling fan off, that woke my wife, causing her to assume that I had somehow burnt the house down and we were seconds from death. She is a little high strung when we leave fire unattended.

OK... recipe time. Bruschetta is a wonderful dish, easy to make on the grill, and a nice appetizer to keep the guests busy while I sliced the meat and got things ready for the real meal. I made these for Herme's birthday party I blogged about last week. You can get those details by clicking HERE. In advance of the party, I creamed together i package of cream cheese and 4 ounces of goat cheese, along with 2 tablespoons of lemon juice. Goat cheese is a little pricey, so combining these ingredients gets the taste, with about 1/3 the cost. I also had some grilled onions (2 red onions, cut into 1/2 inch slices, marinated in balsamic vinegar for an hour prior to cooking). I also had some grilled garlic (I put whole cloves on skewers, and toasted over the grill (2 whole garlic heads worth) cooked about 1 hour ahead of time. Finally, I diced 2 whole tomatoes. The 4 mixings were put in 4 different bowls so guests could assemble the "pizzas" as they like.

I made Garlic toast from the FABULOUS recipe from Steven Raichlen's Book HOW TO GRILL. You can check the recipe review I did for the toast by clicking HERE.. Each guest got a piece of toast, and they did as they please. Makes a great appetizer, and gives them something to do so i can work.

Sadly, this is the only shot I have of this delight. Just smear a little cheese on the toast, add as many ingredients as you like... and viola! Bon Appetite