I am about to impart on you, my faithful and brave readers, a recipe that was made a few months ago. It began with the North Market Fiery Foods Show where, in his infinite brilliance, Chad Lowcock of Race City Sauce Works introduced me to his El Ajo De Los Diablos Red Chile & Garlic Tapenade.

When I tried it at the show, I absolutely loved it. Honestly, I don’t remember it being as spicy as it

was, but I made sure there was one bottle I was taking home. Since bringing that bottle home, we have used some virtually every single day and are currently awaiting more. When talking with Chad about the usage possibilities, I mentioned crostini and he gave me a recommendation/recipe for using the tapenade in that manner. I took that to the next level. Let me start by giving you the instructions he gave me, verbatim.

1. For the cheese, mix equal parts room temp cream cheese and goat’s cheese. Mix with a hand mixer or stand mixer.
2. Pre-toast the bread at 325 prior to spooning the cheese mix on.
3. To give the toast more flavor, brush with olive oil and lightly sprinkle with kosher salt and cracked black pepper.
4. Toast until just crispy but not too brown.
5. Spoon on cheese in small dollop.
6. Bake in 350 oven until cheese has lightly browned.
7. Top with tapenade.
8. You can play with the cheese mix if you want to add basil, chives or parsley to give an additional flavor and color.

Here’s what I did…

1. Cut slices of French Baguette on an angle about ¼ to ½ inches thick.
2. Lightly coated with pepper infused olive oil.
3. Sprinkled kosher salt and Cajohn’s black pepper & ghost chile pepper on top.
4. Toasted for just a few minutes.

5. Mixed equal parts of room temperature cream cheese and Mont Chevre’s herbed goat cheese. Played with the flavors of fresh herbs and ended up using chives, basil & cilantro.

6. Added cheese and baked until lightly brown.

7. Used a teaspoon of tapenade on each crostino.

Closeup of final product. Yummers!

As you can see, I added two more levels of spice with the oil and pepper before even adding the tapenade.

How were they? Friggin’ amazing, but we were sucking wind for a while. If you want to dial these down a bit, don’t add the extra layers of heat that I did and don’t add as much tapenade. However, if you like your food extremely spicy, you MUST try this using my recipe. You will be in heaven over these things. It’s one of those items that you try where you are thinking, “Damn, this is hot as hell, but where can I get another one?”

From that day forward, anything we have added Chad’s products to, have been referred to as “Chad-ified.” A term of endearment.