If you love tomatoes, then you have to make this recipe for Bruschetta. It's so easy, so delicious, and a very picturesque way to feature this gorgeous summer fruit on your table.
Gather four or five cups of tomatoes, optimally local, ideally from your backyard. The plants in my yard have only been able to muster tiny green nubs as yet, so I purchased two kinds to make a colorful mix: yellow cherries, and a big red heirloom from a farm just outside Portland. Chop them up into bite-size pieces (and I seeded the larger, heirloom tomato) and toss into a medium bowl.
Add several tablespoons of chopped basil, several tablespoons of olive oil, one to two tablespoons balsamic vinegar, one very small finely chopped red onion, and mix 'em all up. You can and probably should do all this an hour or two before you serve (but no more) so all the juices can mingle and gather. If you do it in advance, leave the bowl on the counter-- don't put it in the fridge.
When you're ready to serve, toast or broil sliced french bread or focaccia and while it's still hot, rub both sides of the bread with a halved garlic clove. This is my first time with the garlic rub-- it WORKS! I was offending my own self with my breath later that evening, so if you're a garlic-o-phobe, maybe rub only one side of the bread, and briefly at that.
Top bread slices with a heaping spoonful of the tomato mixture. Admire, and serve immediately.
Also pictured: orzo pasta tossed with garbanzo beans, goat cheese, lemon juice, olive oil, and oregano. Good, but nothing in comparison to the sweet, salty, garlicky, bruschetta.
Happy July! And if you've got any superb tomato recipes, please let me know!
2 comments:
YUM! Your recipes look amazing!
Ahhh, tomatoes...Summertime and tomatoes always bring back long-ago memories of a childhood in Bakersfield when hot summer days and tomatoes were linked. My favorite picture is coming home from swimming lessons at the local chlorinated and crowded park pool (lessons were a nickel each), feeling a bit water-logged, exhausted and starving. For snack, Mom gave each of us four kids a fat sun-ripened tomato, which we would eat on the brick patio, just out of hand like an apple, passing the salt shaker and letting the juice drip down on the brick indiscriminately as we bit into the soft, sweet red orbs.
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