The appetizer/snack/light lunch/dinner of champions. I love me some bruschetta! After visiting my parents this weekend, I was lucky enough to come home with some veggies out of their garden, including a lot of tomatoes and basil. Naturally I made some pesto (post to follow), and this evening I made the first of many batches of this versatile italian treat.
The summer after we got married I grew my own tomatoes in our tiny backyard flower bed. While the other veggies I attempted didn't do so well, the tomatoes thrived in the sandy city soil, and we had a ton of them. Over a few weeks I developed (and I think, perfected) a really wonderful, rustic bruschetta recipe that I am happy to share with you here. You'll need:
- 1 large, homegrown heirloom tomato
- 2 cloves of garlic, minced up finely
- about 1 Tbs olive oil
- about 7 large fresh basil leaves
- around a 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
- salt and pepper to taste
- freshly grated parmesean cheese
- ciabatta bread
This recipe serves 2.
Take some ciabatta bread, slice it, and lightly brush it with olive oil or spray lightly with olive oil spray.
Dice the tomato into bite sized pieces. If the tomato is really seedy, then just give it a gentle squeeze over the sink to get rid of most of the seeds and membranes. Placed the diced tomato into a large bowl. Add to that the two cloves of minced garlic. Take your basil leaves and roll them into a log, and make a chiffonade (this is just a fancy word for cutting them into long, thin strips). Add this to the tomato mixture. Next, add your balsamic vinegar. You don't have to use 1/4 cup, that's just an estimate. You want to make sure there's enough vinegar for the tomatoes to marinate. Add the olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste. Mix together, and then allow the mixture to marinate in the fridge for 20 minutes or up to an hour.
Right before you're ready to eat, toast the bread in a toaster oven or under the broiler until golden brown. Spoon the tomato mixture onto the bread with a slotted spoon, allowing the majority of the vinegar/oil mixture to drain back into the bowl. Top with freshly grated parmesean cheese, and serve with your favorite red wine.
This bruschetta is sweet, salty, tart, and savory, all at the same time, which I find really enjoyable. Note: Sometimes if I have some shallots on hand, I'll take one, dice it very finely, and incorporiate it into the mixture. You could do the same with red onions, too. Enjoy!
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