Panzanella

Panzanella is a traditional Italian dish, made from left over bread and juicy tomato's. I first discovered it on Jamie Oliver's '30 minute meals' programme, which if you haven't watched, I recommend you do as it's full of delicious recipes that can be made in 30 minutes for family dinners etc. But back to Panzanella, it's yummy and pretty cheap to make. There are many variations, but the basics are torn stale bread, tomatoes and a tasty olive oil based dressing.

Panzanella for one

(adapted from Jamie Oliver's recipe)

Ingredients:
3-4 large tomatoes.

Vine tomatoes have the most flavour, and that is essential for this dish! If possible try to avoid buying salad tomatoes as they have little flavour! I chose red, orange and yellow ones from Morrison's in Wrexham.

A stale baguette or ciabatta torn into golf ball sized pieces (I used pumpkin seed bread as it was what we had in the bread bin)
handful basil leaves, torn
2 tablespoons of olive oil

1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar

a pinch of sugar

1 garlic clove
3 anchovy fillets, sliced into 2 long halves

Preheat the oven to gas mark 7-8.

 1. Tear your bread into small chunks, and place in a baking tray. Crush the clove of garlic over the bread, and drizzle with a little olive oil. Now toast them in the oven for roughly 10 minutes.

2. Take them out of the oven and place into a large bowl. Now chop your tomato's into chunks and mix them together with the bread. You can add you basil leaves here too. Don't worry if your heavy handed, it's useful as it means the juices from the tomatoes will run into the bread.

3. Mix together your balsamic, olive oil and pinch of sugar. Add some salt & pepper to taste, and pour over your bread and tomato's.

4. chop the anchovies into small pieces and scatter over the dish. Give it all another good mix, and there you have it!

Garnish with a few more basil leaves.

It's a lovely dish to have, and you can add anything else that you fancy too it, from chopped shallots, capers, torn mozzerella etc! Scott and I enjoyed this with some elderflower cordial, and followed it up with a cheeky raspberry donut!