Panzanella

Well -- it's been a month since my last #plantwednedsay post and not because I wasn't eating vegetarian on Wednesdays but because I wasn't around to cook my own!

So, first time back in a month and decided to make Panzanella -- a light salad using leftover homemade ciabatta, combined with some veggies and an olive oil based dressing. Easy and tasty.

I first drizzled one red and one yellow pepper with olive oil and roasted for 25 mins at 400F.  While that was going on, I blanched 4 roma tomatoes and peeled the skin off.  I quartered the roma tomatoes and scoped the seeds out into a bowl (reserve this) and then put the slices in my serving bowl.

In a medium sized bowl, I made a mix of olive oil (between 1/3 - 1/2 cup); 2 clovers of minced garlic; 3 T red wine vinegar; strained the tomato seed/juice mixture;  and some salt & pepper.  I tore up a 3-day old ciabatta loaf that I had made (it was about 6" long x 3" wide) into smallish-bite size chunks and let it soak for 1 hour in this (mixing occasionally).

After the peppers were done roasting, I sealed them in bowl and let them sweat for 15-20 mins and then peeled the skin off of those, removed the seeds and sliced into strips.

I quartered the roma tomatoes and scoped the seeds out into a bowl (reserve this) and then put the slices in a service bowl along with the red & yellow pepper strips.  I refrigerated this while the bread soaked in the olive oil.  I am not sure if this is supposed to be a room temperature dish or chilled -- in the end, I am very glad I chilled it.

Then added the olive oil dressing to the veggies and tossed lightly.  And a good handful of basil leaves -- most torn in half but left the smaller ones whole.

I wasn't sure this would be enough for me (this made about 2-3 servings) so we also made some black bean "burgers"  (a recipe for another day)