At the same time I was living in Rome, a friend of mine was living in Tuscany. We didn't know each other at the time, even though we went to the same university, but we now work together. She shared this recipe with me, which she learned while living in Tuscany. Tuscany has some of the best farming country in all of Italy. And because of the all the farms and natural woodlands, a lot of the food is much more earthy and gamey than in other parts of Italy. These seems like one of those recipes that you whip together when you have leftover bread that's about to go stale and a few too many tomatoes. But it is a delicious snack or side dish!Ingredients
- 2 large tomatoes (about 2 to 3 cups)
- 1 shallot (or about 1/2 cup of onion)
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1/4 cup of fresh basil, chopped
- 1/4 cup evoo
- 2 Tbl red wine vinegar
- loaf of Italian bread, cut into 1 inch cubes
[If you don't want as much spice, use 2 cloves garlic and red or white onion instead of the shallot.]
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| Our first heirloom tomato of the season provided most of the tomato we needed for this |
2. Arrange the bread in a single layer on a cookie tray. Drizzle with olive oil. Then toast the bread until it's slightly crunchy on the outside but still soft on the inside (about 5-7 minutes).
3. Add the toasted bread to the bowl and mix well. Serve and enjoy!
The recipe my friend gave me used about 7 tomatoes, but they ranged in size from cherry tomatoes to the giant beefsteak. I had 2 huge tomatoes on hand so that's what I used, and it was a pretty good ratio with the other ingredients. But tomatoes are so delicious there's no reason you shouldn't add more. Her recipe also called for 1 whole onion, but I had a shallot I needed to use. And I figured it would go well with the garlic and vinegar (which it did). She also used ciabatta in her recipe; I used about a half loaf of sliced sourdough that I had laying around.
My variations on my friend's recipe were pretty delicious... can't wait until we get more tomatoes from the garden!
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