I haven't in long while, but I used to make an olive spread - finely minced olives, a little fresh garlic, chopped fresh herbs and oil.

Caramelized onions in a crock pot is the absolute best method. The only negative is that the lids rubber part smelt like onions for a long-time afterword. My MIL used the pressure cooker once and they were a disintegrated blob. When she told me she was going to try it I thought about talking her out of it, but the woman loves her PC and was going to do it regardless.

My favorite is pickled jalapenos. I really like fermented stuff and should branch out and make more.

I don’t know if pesto counts, but that’s my favorite condiment. I like traditional basil-based, but I also like one that is lemon-based. I suppose I should try making some from other vegetables. I can’t imagine that broccoli and cauliflower wouldn’t be tasty.

I have several vegetable spreads I make with cream cheese. I slice pimento-stuffed green olives and mix with cream cheese almost 1:1 ratio and make sandwiches, adding butter lettuce. Makes a good picnic sandwich. And there's a veggie spread I had eons ago at a deli in NYC that stuck in my head - chopped radishes and sliced scallions mixed with cream cheese and spread on a bagel. So good - will last just a few days until the radishes start to weep and make the mixture watery.

Regarding cream cheese, this is still a favorite from my mom. Can be formed into a ball or in a dish as a spread.

Garlic-Herb Cheese Ball

Best made a day before serving.

2 8-oz. pkgs. cream cheese, room temp.
2 small cloves garlic, minced
2 T. minced green onion
2 T. chopped fresh basil (or 1 1/2 to 2 tsp. dried)
2 T. chopped fresh dill (or 1 1/2 tsp. to 2 tsp. dried)
1/4 tsp. salt (or to taste)
Lemon pepper and chopped parsley, for garnish

Combine everthing but the lemon pepper and parsley; mix well. Cover and chill. Form into ball. Lightly sprinkle cheese ball all over with lemon pepper, then sprinkle top with chopped parsley.

Note: If making a spread, mix in about 1/2 tsp. lemon pepper and sprinkle top with chopped parsley.

My mom also used to spread thinly sliced ham with a mix of cream cheese, red onion amd chopped olives, then roll them up.

Hummus

Ha - forgot about hummus 😀

I honestly haven't made any spreads or dips in a long while. I used to make cheese spread/dips often, and hummus as well.

One that I used as a dip, but is also a spread, is made with cottage and cheddar cheese blended until smooth. I can't recall how I flavored it, it's been so long.

Thanks, everybody! Lots of interesting ideas. I hadn't been thinking about cheese or any carrier, but intriguing there. And gave me the thought that minced greens with a cream cheese or maayonnaise-ish base to hold it together might be awesome!

I was just thinking about tapenade…another good one.

Here's a recipe I created (from memory) of a Brazilian tartar sauce:

Molho Tártaro

1/3 cup minced pickled carrot (can substitute grated fresh carrot)
3-6 pimento stuffed olives, chopped
1 tbsp capers, chopped (optional)
1/3 cup minced onion
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
juice of one lime
1 cup mayonnaise

Mix all ingredients together and store in the refrigerator to chill.
Adjust flavors to taste.

Chloebud, I make boursin that's similar to your cheese ball, although it does have butter.

I use all fresh herbs except for the oregano.

BOURSIN CHEESE

8 oz. cream cheese, softened

½ stick butter, softened

½ teaspoon garlic, mashed & finely minced

1 teaspoon oregano, chopped (I prefer dried oregano, so I use less)

2 teaspoons chives, chopped

2 tablespoons basil, chopped

1-2 teaspoons thyme, chopped

½ teaspoon dill

2 teaspoons parsley, chopped

coarse salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

Beat cheese and butter together. Add garlic, mixing well. Add finely chopped herbs, salt and pepper.

Chill slightly and form into ball or log. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap. Refrigerate or freeze. Serve with crackers.

BASIL BUTTER

½ cup softened butter (unsalted)

1/3 cup fresh basil leaves, chiffonade

¼ cup grated fresh Parmesan cheese

1 large clove garlic, minced

Combine all ingredients. Let stand at room temperature for 1 hour. Store in refrigerator in an airtight container for up to one week.

To freeze, chill mixture until slightly firm. Shape into small balls and freeze on cookie sheet till very firm, then pop into resealable bag.

Use to season veggies or pasta, broiled or grilled chicken and fish.

Baba ghanoush, ajvar, roasted pepper spread… Pesto and various ground up herbs with evoo and garlic.

I do make the "usual" stuff, like hummus, Ajvar and Baba Ganoush. I also like bean based dips other than hummus, like refried beans or white bean dip.

Elery found these a couple of weeks ago and I diced them, fried them and made morel butter to use on steak or asparagus. I froze them in tablespoon amounts to use as I want.

Annie

A lot of the above. I don't know if you'd include the Indian style mango or pineapple or tomato chutneys. So quick and easy. What they do in Italy is a simple cooked slice of aubergine on bread instead of butter, topped with other veg and meats.

Onion slices soaked in lemon juice.

Romesco sauce.

There are so many.

@Islay_Corbel I googled Romesco sauce and fell into a hole. There are so many variations! Do you mind sharing the recipe you use?

Sounds really good, Judi!

aioli

Dave, I've been thinking about something like that, i.e., a garlic emulsion, but I still have to research how to remove the ”never store garlic in oil” microbes. If pasteuization works, that's easy enough sous vide, but an aioli is easy enough to make a la minute.

Yesterday, I made the green condiment, timing of which was dependent on my produce delivery. it was a bunch of chard and a bunch of green curly kale, an apple and a couple dollops of thick salad dressing, pureed. It's too early in the morning to test, though. My box also had gigantic carrots, just begging to become a salad.

ETA: The green stuff made 2.75 cups. It's pasty enough that it doesn't squeeze out of the sandwich, though if there are voids, gravity will pull it down. The salad dressing was aa good idea. I was too tired to season it, and the amount in the dressing, about 1-1.5 tbsp, was just right for neutral but not bland. Sandwich is pastrami with mustard and greens condiment on toasted cracked wheat sourdough.

The mention of garlic just reminded me I used to make a garlic mayo to go with steamed artichokes - simply roasted and crushed garlic cloves, a bit of lemon juice and fresh ground black pepper mixed into organic mayonnaise to taste, IIRC.

BTW, when I make basil pesto, I use walnuts instead of pine nuts, since I don't usually keep pine nuts on hand. I go by Mollie Katzen's recipe from my old Moosewood Cookbook.

Try looking up Toum sauce. Lebanese garlic emulsion.

Toum is great--but should be eaten up right away. So, with that and aioli in mind, I looked around again for good info and found a reference to this article from UCDavis (which is an ag school). https://ucfoodsafety.ucdavis.edu/sites/g/files/dgvnsk7366/files/inline-files/250352.pdf

Easy to read with full info on garlic safety, including how to make it storable at home. Basically, use citric acid (which I have) to make the pH inhospitable to the botulism.

Another toum fan here!

Was also thinking of chimichurri…something I like with grilled meats, poultry and veggies.

Just recalled a spicy peanut sauce - mostly for cold noodles, but great used as a dip for crudites: Peanut butter thinned with orange juice, fresh ginger & garlic, soy sauce, hot pepper sauce and vinegar or lime juice - and honey or molasses is optional.

Thanks, Carol! I like spicy peanut sauce, but never made it. I'll try that.

Meantime, I'm thinking about something from cauliflower, and hoping to make overnight onion jam. I've read recipes and they're all over the place, so I think I'll do my own thing. ;)

This week I'm beginning to feel normal, finally, and getting a lot done in the kitchen, some of it actual cooking, though I'm not up to a lot of knife work yet. Today, I'm steaming the vegetables that need cooking, and I did make the onion jam overnight-ish.

I'd read a lot of recipes. Many called for a lot of sugar, but I wasn't looking for actual jam (of the raspberry jam ilk), and wasn't preserving, so I skipped those. I also found a lot of recipes that added sauces that were brown: Soy sauce, Worcestershire, etc. I found one which sounded very tasty but used things I don't have and can't be made on the fly, so I used it as a kind of template, and just did my own thing.

3 goodly yellow onions, bigger than baseballs but smaller than softballs chopped with the medium dicing blade on my FP. One small, hard, but sweet apricot, cooking quality EVOO (maybe a couple tablespoons?), a few shots with the sprinkle tap of ume plum vinegar, maybe a tablespoon of Ponzu sauce, a few shakes of a very citrusy pepper blend. All into the multi-cooker and slow cooked on lo for about 9 hours. At that point, it was all very cooked though not completely dissolved, but very wet, as in sitting in a pool of water, and too stringent.

The seal on the multicooker did its job well, keeping all that water in. Luckily, it also has a "sauté" setting that will boil on hi. I did turn on the hood to (way overpowered) high, which helped, but I didn't move the pot under it. It's only about 4', and I thought of it, but just wasn't into it. And if the house smells of onions, too bad. The "sauté" worked fine. As it reduced and was stirred, the sweetness of the apricot got better distributed and the astringence of the acids mellowed out. It was good enough to lick the spoon, but it's what it tastes like fully chilled, and heated in a melty sandwich that counts. It's sure to be good, but exactly what it is is yet to be tasted.

ETA: I couldn't wait. I just stuck a spoon into the jar. This stuff is danged delicious! The flavor is now very oniony, but with a complex undertone of the seasoning. It could probably be improved upon, but as is, it's really good. :)

For Aziline. https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/romesco-sauce

For lunch, I made chicken salad sandwiches on the same kind of toast I made above, nice and crunchy because all the insides were soft. Green condiment on one side, onion jam on the other, really soft chicken salad, from the deli, with tiny crunchy celery bits and long sort of crunchy long carrot strings but otherwise very soft. REALLY good.

Thanks to all of you, I have a lot more things to try, but not missing mayonnaise at all. :) (Nothing wrong with mayo, but these are better and seem to be functional.)