“Panzanella, little swamp, is another tomato favorite, a salad of oil, vinegar, tomatoes, basil, cucumber, minced onion, and stale bread soaked in water and squeezed dry - a true invention from necessity. Since bread must be bought every day, Tuscan cooking makes good use of leftovers.”
Nothing could be easier. I used 3 small tomatoes cut up in small bites, half a cucumber also cut up into small bites, minced onion, fresh local basil, 8 slices of leftover hard baguette seasoned with salt and pepper. Like many Tuscan cooks, I added the olive oil and vinegar by eye but you should know the typical ratio is 3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar.
The bread was soaked in water and squeezed as dry as possible. At first I didn’t think it would taste very good but after dressing the salad and letting it sit for a while, the bread gave the salad a wonderful texture and absorbed some of the seasoning with the juices from the vegetables. It was amazing. And it went great with a chilled bottle of Prosecco!
Karlynn Johnston on 17 Jun 10Necessity is the mother of invention, so they say, and this mother had to make a banana muffin that her kids would eat! I have tried oatmeal banana ones, but they never seem to like them, banana loaf is always a hit but I really wanted to try my new teeny muffin liners that I bought for my mini
