bruschetta

this was the first time trying this out. it was super simple. i had found a few recipes online that looked good. some were for fresh tomatoes, some were for canned tomatoes. jae & i decided to try it with half and half since i had some canned tomatoes and fresh tomatoes that i had picked up.

1 can whole stewed tomatoes - italian style (w/ italian seasonings)
5 roma tomatoes
fresh basil leaves (about 10-15 leaves)
3-5 cloves garlic
extra virgin olive oil for brushing
dash of salt
artisan bread, cut on the diagonal in about 1 inch pieces


chop 1 can of tomatoes, well-drained, into small pieces. chop roma tomatoes into same size pieces as canned tomatoes. mince 3 to 5 garlic cloves. i think i ended up doing 5 because my garlic mincer doesn't mince the whole clove... if that makes sense. slice basil leaves in thin strips. put in about half, stir and eye if you think you need more... or just taste the mixture. i think we ended up using about 15 leaves. we let the mixture sit for a couple hours before serving it up for the party. you can put it in the fridge if you prefer - but you aren't supposed to refrigerate fresh basil so we kept it out. don't put the salt in the mixture until you are about to put it on the bread because the salt will make the mixture sweat.

when ready to serve.. put broiler on to 450ish. slice the bread into 1 inch pieces. i put the bread in for about 3 minutes and they were perfectly toasted. then tyler pointed out that i forgot the EVOO (extra virgin olive oil). Oops! I had a moment of panic but i think it might have turned out better this way. they were a little crispier and held up throughout the night. after brushing the bread with EVOO, I threw in the dash of salt to the tomatoes and scooped the tomato/basil mixture on the bread slices. place on serving plate - and you are set!

my apologies for poor pictures of everything. i was doing most of the prep about 30 minutes before the party on my own. so i was just trying to get everything out before people showed up, that didn't exactly work but the food went over really well. i cropped this from the full food picture in the post before.