Food Friday: Easy Bruschetta

One of the best parts of summer's abundance of tomatoes  is that I can quickly pull together bruschetta.  I made this batch for my book group on Saturday night. It tastes like summer should taste and it's easy to whip up.  To make it, you'll need to bake a batch of garlic toasts.

And then stir together 3 cups of fresh tomato (homegrown if you have them), chopped small.  Add 3-4 cloves of minced garlic, and a cup of fresh sliced basil (I like to julienne mine….just pile up a bunch of basil leaves and slice into narrow, thin strips).  You want to stir this together just before you intend to serve so that the basil remains crisp.  Just before serving, stir in a bit of salt to taste.  You can spoon it onto the toast, if you like.  When I do that, I like to serve it with cubes of mozzarella, black olives, and pepperoncini.

Or you can set out the tomato mixture next to the basket of garlic toast and folks can make their own.  That's what I did on Saturday.  The bruschetta mixture is in the yellow bowl on the right; set out amongst the rest of the snacks I served.  In the interest of full disclosure,  I can't take credit for everything on this table  The excellent muffaletta sandwiches were made by my friend P, who hails from Louisiana, and has the accent and recipe index to prove it.

Fresh, easy, tasty.