Fancy Crostini: Two Ways

Crostini makes for the most perfect appetizer (or dinner, lunch, breakfast, or brunch for that matter). They're bite-sized, fun-loving, and you can make them into anything your heart desires. Even the bread itself is so easy to elevate..add parmesan, a fancy butter, toasted nuts, or even some extra spices before you add your topping.

Flank Steak Crostini

The magic behind this particular crostini is the marinated flank steak. I used a wide variety of seasonings to impart an abundance of flavors. Only about an hour is needed for this process (if you have the time). Also, I would suggest leaving the steak on the counter for about 20 minutes before searing. With flank steak, everything is about the way you slice it, you can avoid a tough, chewy mess if you slice against the grain as opposed to with the grain. For crostini, in particular, I would recommend thin pieces.

White wine Brussels Sprouts Crostini

This crostini is fairly easy to make but attention to detail is important. Additionally, it helps if you have all prep work completed beforehand which includes toasting the bread. Cut your Brussels sprouts in half, and start them in the pan with olive oil.

Once they have caramelized on each side (this should take a couple minutes on each side) add in the wine, vegetable broth bell pepper, salt, and pepper, cook them until they're tender and all of the liquid has reduced. This will be a slightly slower process than before. The full instructions are listed below but I wanted to give you an idea of what you're looking for. When the sprouts are tenders all that's left is to assemble

About the extra Brussels Sprouts

Now, this recipe only calls for 4 sprouts because they will be cut in half and will yield 8 crostini. As you can see here, I will have basically a whole bag leftover which is fine with me because I can just freeze them for use over time. If you'd rather not have so much leftover, I suggest finding a place that sells them individually.

General necessities

There are a couple of things I did to each one that will be standard throughout which is...I brushed both sides of the slices of bread with olive oil and baked them in the oven at 400 degrees for 5 minutes. The purpose of doing this is to create a thicker exterior of bread so the integrity isn't lost when adding any moisture-rich ingredients. In so many words, toast the bread so it doesn't get soggy. I used a French baguette for this recipe and each piece was sliced about half an inch thick.

Final thoughts

The serving size on these will vary depending on thr occassion but roughly speaking you can expect about 6 slices for each one. For organization sake, I'll go ahead and divide the rest of this blog into 3 sections to go along with the 3 different types of crostini I made. I'll put a comprehensive recipe including all thre at the bottom on my recipe card. Grab a snack and come on back...this post will be quite lengthy but I'm sure you'll enjoy it!

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