A delicious summer salad, this panzanella recipe uses fresh ingredients straight from the garden and stale bread. If you don’t have stale bread, don’t worry, you can toast it to make it crunchy like stale bread! Adding some garlic and olive oil to the bread makes it even more tasty!

Ingredients:

• 2 Ciabatta Rolls, halved
• 1/2 lb. Cocktail Tomatoes, quartered
• 4 oz. Ciliegine Mozzarella, halved
• 4 oz. Green Olives, pitted and halved
• 3 Cucumbers, cubed
• 1/2 Red Onion, thinly sliced
• 1 Serrano Pepper, chopped
• 2 Garlic Cloves, pressed
• 9 Basil Leaves
• 5 Tbsp. Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 2 Tbsp. Red Wine Vinegar
• Salt and Black Pepper, to taste

Preheat the oven to 400°F with rack in middle position.

Meanwhile, press the garlic and place in a small bowl. Add two tablespoons of olive oil and mix.

On a parchment paper lined baking sheet, place the ciabatta bread halves, cut side up, and brush the garlic and oil mixture on top of each half. Place in the oven and bake until golden brown and crispy, about fifteen minutes.

Meanwhile, slice the onion thinly, cube the cucumbers, halve the mozzarella balls, chop the hot pepper, halve the olives, quarter the tomatoes and place it all in a large salad bowl. Rip up the basil leaves and add them to the bowl.

Once the bread is ready, remove from the oven and let cool off a bit. Cut the bread into cubes. You may only need three of the halves, depending on the amount of bread you prefer in the salad. Add the bread cubes into the salad bowl.

Season with sea salt, black pepper, vinegar and olive oil. Mix slowly as to not break the tomatoes apart and serve.

Fried Green Tomatoes

Recipe Courtesy of Pasquale Sciarappa 

Hello everybody! Today I am sharing with you how I make fried green tomatoes. I went into my garden to pick some fresh tomatoes for a salad, but found that most of them were still green. A few summers ago, one of my subscribers suggested I try fried green tomatoes. My wife took it upon herself to learn the recipe and we were hooked. It is now a must have in the summer for us.

Ingredients:

• 3 green tomatoes, ends removed
• 2 eggs, scrambled
• all purpose flour, enough to cover a dish
• cornmeal, enough to cover a dish
• salt, to taste
• black pepper, to taste
• olive oil

Dip Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 6 oz. mayonnaise
• 1 lemon
• handful of fresh parsley, stems removed and chopped
• salt, to taste
• black pepper, to taste

Directions:

Start by pouring some cornmeal onto a dish, enough to cover each side of each slice of tomato. Pour the all purpose flour onto a separate dish, enough to cover both sides of each slice of tomato. To the all purpose flour, add a pinch of salt and black pepper and mix together.

In a bowl, add the eggs and a pinch of salt and black pepper, to your preference, and scramble together.

Fill a frying pan about half way or with enough olive oil to completely cover the tomato slices. Heat up on the stove while preparing your tomato slices and dip, as the oil must be really hot before you start frying the tomatoes.

To prepare the tomatoes, cut off each end of the tomatoes and then slice them into 1/4 inch slices. I recommend placing the tomato slices on a dish lined with a paper towel to absorb any excess water.

Once the olive oil is hot, take each tomato slice and pat each side into the flour, then dip into the eggs, and lastly pat each side with cornmeal. Place each tomato slice into the frying pan and fry each side for about 4 minutes. Remove the fried green tomatoes from the frying pan and place onto a rack over a dish to collect the excess oil or a dish lined with a paper towel to absorb the excess oil.

For the dip; add the buttermilk, mayonnaise, pinch of salt, pinch of black pepper, and parsley into a bowl. Next, add about a teaspoon of lemon zest into the bowl. Cut the lemon in half and squeeze the juice of only one half of the lemon into the bowl. Mix all together.

Serve the fried green tomatoes with a side of dip and enjoy! Cin cin!

Ellen Easton’s Slow Roasted Tomatoes (copyright Ellen E

Courtesy Ellen Easton