Julie & Me

I made Andrew a proud and happy man last night. I decided to cook a full blown meal for the two of us. Now, ever since we've been back I've been much better at making my man his meals. In fact, I've averaged 2 a week for the last couple of weeks, which is HUGE for me. HUGE. So anyway, after seeing Julie & Julia last week (HIGHLY recommend, but plan on leaving starved after).. I was CRAVING Bruschetta (pronounced: Brusketta, I know, I've been saying it wrong all along too until lately). There was a scene where Julie made some for her and her husband, and it looked so good, I was literally salivating intensely. So, this week I made the priority to try it out.. and yesterday accomplished it with flying colors! Here is where I found the recipe, but below I've altered it a little to our taste. "Bon Appetit!"
(Trust me, it's good. I don't even like tomatoes usually, that's how good it is!)

Ingredients:

• 6 or 7 ripe plum tomatoes (about 1 1/2 lbs)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced (I just added a smidgen of pre-minced garlic, instead)
  
• 1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 6-8 fresh basil leaves, chopped (I actually did about 3 teaspoon squirts from a tube)
  
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

• 1 baguette French bread or similar Italian bread
• 1/4 cup olive oil

Preparation:

1 Prepare the tomatoes first. Parboil the tomatoes for one minute in boiling water that has just been removed from the burner. Drain. Using a sharp small knife, remove the skins of the tomatoes. (If the tomatoes are too hot, you can protect your finger tips by rubbing them with an ice cube between tomatoes.) Once the tomatoes are peeled, cut them in halves or quarters and remove the seeds and juice from their centers. Also cut out and discard the stem area. Why use plum tomatoes instead of regular tomatoes? The skins are much thicker and there are fewer seeds and less juice.

2 Make sure there is a top rack in place in your oven. Turn on the oven to 450°F to preheat.

3 While the oven is heating, chop up the tomatoes finely. Put tomatoes, garlic, 1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil in a bowl and mix. Add the chopped basil. Add salt and pepper to taste.

4 Slice the baguette on a diagonal about 1/2 inch thick slices. Coat one side of each slice with olive oil using a pastry brush. Place on a cooking sheet, olive oil side down. You will want to toast them in the top rack in your oven, so you may need to do these in batches depending on the size of your oven. Once the oven has reached 450°F, place a tray of bread slices in the oven on the top rack. Toast for 5-6 minutes, until the bread just begins to turn golden brown.

5 Align the bread on a serving platter, olive oil side up. Either place the tomato topping in a bowl separately with a spoon for people to serve themselves over the bread, or place some topping on each slice of bread and serve. If you top each slice with the tomatoes, do it right before serving or the bread may get soggy.

Makes 24 small slices. Serves 6-10 as an appetizer. Or 3-4 for lunch (delicious served with cottage cheese on the side.)

Or if you're us, make it as a side dish, and save the leftovers! They've been good to have the next day! Oh my heaven. It was splendid! PS. They were actually so good and filling, the spaghetti wasn't even necessary.

Best of luck. Pealing tomatoes is actually quite easy, and WELL WORTH IT! Seriously, you should make these. (:

Cheers!