Panzanella

I have a new love.  My "Our Best Bites" cookbook.  Seriously, I love it so much!  Last night I had 20 minutes to cook John dinner and very VERY few ingredients in my apartment.  I whipped out my new cookbook and turned to one of the 30 something pages I'd marked when I got it.  I chose a recipe for a salad called "Panzanella".  If you read my blog you know that I love to cook.  I love to cook more than John likes to eat my cooking.  One thing I can guarantee he will eat is bruschetta.  If you don't know what that is it's an Italian dish made of Italian bread topped with tomatoes, basil, balsamic vinegar and olive oil.  Panzanella seemed so similar to bruschetta that I decided to try it.  Basically it is a bruschetta salad.  You cut the bread into cubes, toss it with olive oil and bake it in the oven for a few minutes.  While it bakes you chop tomatoes, basil, yellow or orange peppers, cucumbers, red onion, and fresh mozzarella and throw them in a bowl.  Then you throw in the bread and toss it with a balsamic vinegar dressing (recipe in the book, basically oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, garlic).  I had to make a few adjustments because I didn't have the required ingredients.  I didn't have fresh basil so I threw some dried basil flakes in with the dressing.  I didn't have cucumbers or onions so I left them out.  I didn't have fresh mozzarella so I chopped up some string cheese and threw it in.  It was seriously SO good.  John didn't even know I had used string cheese because it tasted so fancy.  Anyway...I love food.

P.s. I'm sitting in my Children's Lit class and I haven't eaten all day...so...I guess that explains this post.