Panzanella

When you do a heroic thing like make your own bread, you don't want to waste any of it. Every scrap, even when it's stale and the kind of thing even your dog won't eat. Thankfully, the Italians gifted us with the knowledge of a little salad known as panzanella, bless them.

A Tuscan summer salad that is really easy to prepare and will help you get rid of whatever stale bread and loose vegetables you might have lying around the house. All you really need is stale bread, tomatoes, thinly sliced onion, vinegar, olive oil, and sundry other vegetables. For my panzanella, I decided on yellow and red tomatoes, red onion, green bell pepper, garlic, and cucumbers.

I made a simple dressing of olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt and pepper. I dressed the vegetables and let them marinate, while I toasted the stale bread with a little olive oil.

I let the vegetables sit in the vinegar and olive oil for about 30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes or so. I shaved some parmesan cheese into the salad and tossed in the crunchy bread cubes. And there you have it! Dinner!

Panzanella

makes enough for two people as a light main--maybe with some soup on the side?

Everything about this recipe is very imprecise, so you do your own thing. Add olives or artichokes or mozzarella or capers (blech!) or whatever else tickles your fancy. I almost fried up some bacon for this and I think that would have been fantastic.

Chop 1 tomato, 1/4 red onion, 1 large cucumber, 1/2 bell pepper, and 3 cloves garlic. Mix together. In a lidded jar, shake up 3-4 tbsp olive oil and 2-3 tbsp red wine vinegar. Pour dressing over the vegetables and season the salad with salt and pepper. Let it marinate for 15-45 minutes.

Take two cups of cubed stale bread and drizzle with olive oil. Toast until crunchy. Shave some parmesan cheese or add some cubed mozzarella (my favorite) to the salad and toss the bread in as well. Serve immediately.

This is best eaten right away. The bread will get soggy if you try to keep it too long.