Bruschetta

Market fresh ingredients make a great topping piled on slices of toasted baguette to serve as an appetizer or just for plain snacking!

Tomatoes are at their peak right now with a large variety available in abundance at farm stands and markets everywhere.  Add just a few more ingredients and you have a delicious treat.

Chop up some roma tomatoes, red onion, garlic, fresh basil and toss with olive oil.  Let it sit while you prepare the bread.  Roma tomatoes work well here for their meaty nature.  If you are fortunate enough to have a bumper crop of tomatoes in your own garden, feel free to switch out to whatever type of tomato you have.  I would add an extra step here though.  To avoid your bruschetta from becoming too watery, seed the tomato first and discard this pulpy inner part and chop just the outside flesh of the tomato.

 I like to slice the baguette on the diagonal to get more bread surface to pile on that delicious topping.  Each slice gets brushed with olive oil and bakes in the oven for about 8 minutes to get warm and slightly toasted.  Then rub each warm slice with a clove of garlic to get  more garlic flavour.  If you are serving a crowd, you may want to slice your bread in rounds so that your topping will go further.

Finally, top each slice with the tomato mixture and some crumbled feta cheese.  We enjoy the flavour of feta, but you can also use shredded provolone, fontina or mozzarella cheese.  Return to the oven and bake for an additional 5-6 minutes to warm through and melt the cheese.  Note that feta is not a melting cheese and will remain as yummy crumbles on top.

This is traditionally served as an appetizer but we enjoy snacky type foods for lunch on the weekends as a refreshing change from the typical week day boxed lunch.  A small mini baguette makes enough that can be devoured by two people!!  With enough bruschetta left over to make it again tomorrow!! YUM

Bruschetta

by notjustgrilledcheese

Keywords: appetizer

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Ingredients

• 2 large garlic cloves, minced
• 6-8 Roma tomatoes, coarsley chopped
• handful of chopped fresh basil
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup red onion, finely chopped
• salt and pepper to taste
• additional whole garlic cloves as needed
• grated provolone, mozzarella or fontina cheese or crumbled feta cheese
• one Baguette

Instructions

Combine chopped tomatoes, minced garlic, onion and olive oil in a bowl. Salt and pepper to taste. Toss gently and set aside.

Cut baguette into 1/4 inch slices, either in rounds or on the diagonal. Brush each slice with olive oil and put into a 350°F oven for 8 minutes. Remove from oven.

While the bread is still warm, rub each slice of bread with the cut end of a garlic clove. Depending on how much bread you have, you will need 2 - 3 cloves. Spoon tomato mixture onto each bread slice and sprinkle with chosen cheese.

At this point, you can serve at room temp or put back in the oven for approx 5-8 minutes to heat through and melt cheese.

Serve immediately.

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