This year, I have bought, cooked with, and eaten more Jersey tomatoes than I care to admit. If you read this blog regularly, you know that I’ve also been making a good amount of bread of late. Frankly, I made this salad because we had leftover French bread that I made the day before and had a number of tomatoes that needed to be used rather quickly. Panzanella was exactly what the doctor ordered given what I had on hand at the time. Couple the bread and tomatoes with a bit of arugula, onion and herbs such as basil and parsley and you are in business! I used both lemon juice plus a splash of white wine vinegar to flavor the salad. Add that and a good amount of your best olive oil, allowing the bread and vegetables to mingle together for about 20-30 minutes prior to serving, for maximum flavor. Since we used day old bread and toasted it in a pan for a while, the bread retained its crunchiness despite marinating for that long.

Also, I did a bit of research on Panzanella salad to get a feel for its classic preparation and there are a few variations that I didn’t try (but sounded really good). Among other things, adding some chopped anchovy, capers, different or additional herbs, mild or spicy peppers, or olives (or any combination) would be great. Really, as long as the ingredients are fresh and of good quality, you won’t go wrong here. Salads are great that way…very forgiving and certainly a great platform for experimentation with flavors. So, use your imagination and what’s in season with this one!

Ingredients:

½ half loaf of good quality crusty bread (day old)

1 Large heirloom tomato, cut into large pieces

2 Large tomatoes, quartered (or cut into eighths depending on actual size)

15 Grape or cherry tomatoes, halved

½ Sweet onion, sliced very thinly

1 Cup arugula, chopped coarsely

1 Cup Basil, chopped coarsely (or simply torn)

1 Cup Italian Parsley

Juice of 1 lemon

1 T white wine vinegar

Approximately 1 Cup olive oil

Coarse sea salt and freshly ground pepper

Instructions:

• Chop tomatoes and slice onions. Set aside.
• Juice lemon into bowl and add one tablespoon of white wine vinegar. Add a bit of sea salt and pepper to the bowl. Set aside.
• Heat a pan over medium-low heat. Chop bread coarsely into large bite-sized pieces. Place ¼ Cup olive oil in pan. Add bread and salt to pan.
• Toast bread in olive oil until bread is nicely browned and crunchy (a little over five minutes), stirring every once in a while to avoid burning. You may need to add a little more olive oil to the pan bit by bit as the bread cooks as the bread will absorb a good amount of the oil.
• Add bread, while warm, to tomatoes and onions. Mix well.
• Add ¼ Cup olive oil to the lemon juice and vinegar mixture. Wisk to lightly incorporate. Add vinaigrette to the bread, tomatoes, and onions. Once mixed together, taste the salad. Adjust seasoning as necessary to taste by adding salt, pepper, more olive oil, etc. Allow to marinate for 20 minutes.
• Chop arugula and herbs. Add both to salad. Allow salad to sit for another 5-10 minutes.

Serve salad on plate with a bit of olive oil drizzled over the top.