Bread Salad

The Italians are ingenious about using up their bounty of tomatoes and any leftover bread. Panzanella, or bread salad, uses tomatoes and french bread to create a cool salad when you're wanting something other than lettuce.

                     Panzanella - Italian Bread Salad

3 tablespoons good olive oil

1/2 loaf  french bread, cut into 1-inch cubes

1 teaspoon  kosher or sea salt

2 large, ripe tomatoes, cut into 1-inch cubes

1 cucumber, peeled, seeded and sliced 1/2 inch thick

1/2  red onion, cut in half and thinly sliced

20  large basil leaves, coarsely chopped

3 tablespoons capers, drained

For the Vinaigrette:

1 teaspoon finely minced garlic

½ teaspoon Dijon mustard

3 tablespoons white wine vinegar

½ cup good olive oil

½ teaspoon kosher or sea salt

¼ teaspoon ground black pepper

Heat the oil in a large sauté pan.  Add the bread and salt; cook over low to medium heat, tossing frequently, for 10 minutes, or until nicely browned.  Add more oil as needed.

For the vinaigrette, whisk together the ingredients.

In a large bowl, mix the tomatoes, cucumber, red onion, basil and capers.  Add the bread cubes and toss with the vinaigrette. Season liberally with salt and pepper.  Serve immediately, or allow the salad to sit for about half an hour for the flavors to blend.

New To Me Recipe

I get on recipe-trying kicks where I keep trying new recipes non-stop for a week or two. This is one such week. I was originally looking for a sea bass recipe and came across recipes from TV chef Gordon Ramsey. He has some recipes that he calls "fast food" but that really means that they take less than an hour if you cook fast. They are also fairly light but satisfying because they are full of flavor.

This calls for one chili pepper for the sauce, but that depends on your tolerance for spice and the type of pepper you use. I picked one off of our plants that I had yet to try, and one was plenty! If you buy habanero peppers, for example, you might want to use two. I did not have a thyme or rosemary plant on my balcony, so I had to use dried herbs. The presentation with the live rosemary looks great though.

Baked Pork Chops in Piquant Sauce 

Ingredients for pork chops:

• 4 pork chops, bone in, about  9 oz each
• a little olive oil
• few thyme sprigs, or dried thyme
• few rosemary sprigs (leaves only), or dried rosemary
• 1/2 head of garlic separated into cloves (unpeeled) smash lightly with flat edge of knife
• sea salt and black pepper

Ingredients for Sauce:

• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 large onion (peeled and minced)
• 1 red bell pepper (seeded and minced)
• 1 red chili (seeded and minced)
• 7oz cremini mushrooms (trimmed and finely sliced) optional
• 14oz can chopped tomatoes
• sea salt and black pepper
• 1 tsp sugar

Directions:

Chops:

Heat your oven to 400 F. In a large, lightly oiled baking dish scatter some of the thyme sprigs, rosemary leaves, garlic cloves, and salt.  Place the pork chops in the pan and put the remainder of spices, garlic and salt over the top. Drizzle with a little olive oil and bake for 15 minutes or until pork chops are cooked through. Meanwhile, make the sauce.

Pork chops ready for the oven

Sauce:

Heat the olive oil in a wide pan and add the chili pepper first. After three minutes add the red bell pepper. Cook a few minutes and add onions and mushrooms. Stir over high heat for 3-4 minutes until the vegetables begin to soften. Add half the tomatoes at a time so mixture doesn’t cool down. Season with salt and pepper and add the sugar. Simmer for 10-12 minutes until the onions are tender and the tomato sauce has thickened. Taste and adjust the seasoning.

Putting it all together:

Take the pork chops out of the oven and let rest in a warm place for 5 minutes. Pour any pan juices into the sauce and reheat.With a fork, remove the peel from each garlic clove and mash the roasted garlic along the top of the chop. Ladle a generous amount of sauce in a circle on the plate and top with a chop.Here it is with the sauce on top, but tastes just as good either way I'm sure.

Pork Chop with Piquant Sauce