Recipe: Cobbled-together Bruchetta

Bruchetta is one of my favourites for four delicious reasons.
Minimal ingredients. Takes about fifteen minutes to make. As long as you own a knife and an oven, it is pretty easy.
The only problem with this one is that I usually make it and then eat half of it before I remember that it needed a photo for the blog.

Exhibit A. I'm not sure why I sliced the tomoto.

So. Anyway:

15-20 mins prep time
Serves 2 (this stuff does not make good leftovers)

4 slices bread (cob loaves, sourdough or turkish bread taste best, but it works just as well on sandwich bread)
1/2 an onion
1-2 cloves of garlic
olive oil
2 tomatoes
Savoury herbs (eg. basil, the glass jar of 'mixed herbs', oregano/thyme/etc)
          (not essential but it does make it better)
Salt and Pepper

If you want something a little more extravagant:
baby spinach
feta cheese
olives
balsamic vinegar
pesto
ham or something

Gather:
chopping board and knife and turn on the oven to a low heat.

I appreciate that phrases like 'low heat' aren't on the oven itself. This irritates me too from time to time. 120 degrees should be fine

Put a little bit of olive oil on both sides of the bread slices and stick them on a tray in the warm oven. Leave them in there for five minutes.

While it's toasting away. Dice the onion. Thinly slice the garlic. Or use a garlic press if you have one. (Bec and I don't). Dice the tomatoes. It's okay if you pour off a bit of the juice; it'll only make the meal soggy.

If you happen to have ham, then grab a small quantity and shred it.

The bread should have finished toasting by now. Pull it out and (if you have pesto, spread a little bit on it now). add the onion and garlic. Herbs if they're there. A bit of salt and pepper. The ham and the tomotoes.

Back in the oven for another ten minutes.

If you have those other ingredients on standby, chop the feta into small cubes and mix it with the baby spinach and olives. Put them on the plate.

If not, I'd recommend finding the extent of everything in the kitchen that the tomato juice got on and cleaning it up. This is still a mighty dish without the presence of salad.

DING! Goes the oven as you leap like a puma to the oven. Pry it open and force it to give up your prey. Remember that writing a recipe in poetic tense is way more fun than imitating a robot and move the slices of tomato-heaped delicious to your plate.

Utensils are optional.

Oh. The balsamic vinegar? Drizzle a little on top if you want. It will be more delicious if you have not previously tried eating the crumbs at the bottom of a pretzel packet. (Salty.)
Add extra salt and pepper if you want.

Consume.

Cost? Um. Probably less than $5, if you're not buying salad. $2.50 per serving.


Protip: Because the plug-in oven that Bec owns is too small for four slices of bread at once, I toast two at a time. Also, this means that by the time you finish the first slice, the second is ready and above all, hot.

If you happen to have tomato paste, that can be substituted for the pesto. We have some in the fridge because my grandfather gave it to us.

One of the other reasons why Bruchetta is such an excellent recipe is that it is mostly constituted of things you have on standby in the pantry anyway, except the tomato.