Bread Salad, or Panzanella

Panzanella, or Bread Salad by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

When the summer tomatoes are at their juiciest, make this bread salad, panzanella, a salad that is greater than the sum of its parts. Tomatoes, bread, a little garlic, a round-up of the produce kicking around in the produce drawer. It's the kind of easy, effortless eating that just makes summer summer.

Panzanella

6 green onions

1/2 baguette, day old, cubed

1 shallot, minced

1 small cucumber, diced

2 medium tomatoes, diced

1/2 cup diced cucumber

1 handful basil leaves, shredded


Dressing:

2 tablespoons minced shallots

1 tablespoon finely grated lemon rind

1 clove garlic, minced (about 1 teaspoon)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

Freshly ground black pepper to taste



1. To prepare the dressing: In a large bowl, use a fork to mix together the shallots, lemon rind, garlic and salt, mashing the ingredients together.Whisk in oil, vinegar and freshly ground black pepper to taste. Set aside.

2. To prepare the salad: Add the salad ingredients together and toss well with the dressing.Serve immediately or store in refrigerator for up to a half hour.

Text and image copyright 2013, Lucy Mercer.

Jeff's bruschetta

Jeff's bruschetta by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books



My neighbor Jeff is a foodie. A man who truly enjoys getting in the kitchen and creating. One of the best things about being neighbors with and his family is that they will invite us over for dinner and feed us well. A second perk is that he shares recipes. He couldn't wait to tell me this one and when he did, I couldn't wait to make it. A simple little app using the best summer tomatoes you can find.

This is an informal recipe, so you'll just have to follow your instincts in the kitchen:

1. Assemble a baguette, a lemon, ricotta (whole milk's the way to go here, but if you all you have is low-fat, that'll work), a ripe tomato or two or three, some fresh basil and some fresh oregano, salt and pepper.

2. Take a baguette, slice it into thin rounds. If you're grilling, place slices on the grill long enough to get lovely grill marks. If you're indoors, toast the slices for a few minutes, just to crisp them up.

3. Stir together some ricotta, say about a 1/2 cup and add the zest of 1/2 the lemon. Stir in some chopped fresh oregano. Season with salt and freshly cracked black pepper.

4. Chop the tomato(es) and stir in some chopped basil, salt and pepper. I'm the kind of person who would add minced garlic at this point.

5. Top the grilled bread slices with a shmear of ricotta mixture and a spoonful of the tomato mixture. Garnish with a pinch of whole basil leaves.

And that's it! Make some extras and invite your neighbors over!



When life gives you vegetables...make soup!

Last week, I whined about an overabundance of vegetables in my refrigerator, hoping for a Salon Kitchen Challenge on the subject of arugula, or turnips or cauliflower. That was not to be, we were given the subject of Halloween candy, which turned out pretty well for me, as I turned out Poached Pears with Chocolate Sauce (using leftover Hershey's miniatures). Still, I needed to use up the vegetables, and turned to the thrifty cook's go-to recipe, soup.

I made ribollita, a Tuscan soup literally meaning "reboiled." It's a mixture of vegetables, broth and leftover bread. Hey, I had that, too. The result is a hearty soup in a tremendous quantity.



Ribollita by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books



Ribollita

 I had a lot of greens on hand, and added a chiffonade of arugula at the end. This is optional, but a colorful and tasty addition.

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
3 Asian eggplants, peeled and sliced on the bias
2 medium onions, peeled and diced
2 large carrots, peeled and diced
1 stalk celery, diced
1/2 head Napa cabbage, shredded
2 (14.5 oz.) cans diced tomatoes
1 cup fresh or frozen butter beans
4 cups vegetable or low-salt chicken broth, homemade if available
Salt and pepper to taste
A handful of basil, chiffonade, optional
Greens such as arugula, chiffonade, optional
Stale, good-quality rustic bread

1. In a soup pot or a Dutch oven over medium heat, stir in olive oil and place eggplant slices in pan. Cook them as you would meat, letting them brown on both sides. Stir in onions, letting them soften, followed by carrots and celery. Continue to cook until all the vegetables are brownish and soft, adding a bit of water if needed.

2. Stir in tomatoes, butter beans and broth. Add cabbage. Season to taste and let simmer, covered, for about 30 minutes. If adding basil or greens, stir them into pot just before serving. Place slice of stale bread in bottom of soup bowl, ladle soup over all. Serve.

One of my favorite writers on the subject of food, or just about anything, is Calvin Trillin. In a piece in Gourmet magazine a few years ago, Trillin wrote that ribollita is Italian for "sticks to your ribs." I must agree, but there's always room for dessert, especially this dense apple cake, kind of a blondie with sweet apples baked inside. It's from Lisa Kuebler's blog and is fantastic.




Apple Cake by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books


Text and images copyright 2011, Lucy Mercer.