One Ingredient, Two Meals: Trader Joe's Roasted Red Pepper & Artichoke Tapenade

If you are anything like me, you buy a specialty sauce for a specific recipe and then the jar sits in the fridge until the next time you feel like making that same recipe. Since moving and setting up our kitchen again, I have been trying hard to be creative and use what we have in the fridge to create meals. On a recent trip to Trader Joe's I picked up this tapenade to eat on crackers.

It was so good that I knew I wanted to buy another to make meals with. Here are two recipes that I used the spread in and loved.

First up was a recipe from the Trader Joe's website called Some Enchanted Pizza. It is really quick and was a fast lunch for us. To make, heat the oven to 400 degrees, get two Trader Joe's Garlic Naan from the freezer, put on a pizza pan, and bake in the oven for about 5 minutes. After pulling them out, slather with the roasted red pepper tapenade, top with some chevre, and put back into the oven for 5 more minutes. Here is what mine looked like at this point:

Now you could stop here and have a great little meal like the Trader Joe's recipe but I love arugula and had some to use up so I added a handful of arugula on top of the pizza and it back in the oven for a few minutes to wilt slightly. We love these now for a quick lunch. 

For the second meal using the tapenade, I made a warm spinach salad with poached egg and bacon. I am slightly obsessed with warm spinach salads and this one is even Paleo for those of you eating that way if you use the right bacon. In this recipe the tapenade was substituted to make the dressing for the salad.

To make just follow THIS recipe from the lovely Ms. Martha but omit the 1/2 cup of vinegar. Instead of adding  the vinegar to the pan with the cooked shallots and bacon fat, substitute 1/3 cup of the red pepper tapenade and the juice of half a lemon. This recipe serves 4 so I  cut it in half for the Mr and I. It was such a good way to use up our Costco spinach box.  Give these recipes a try or at the very least eat the tapenade on some pita chips or crackers.