"Panzanella" news and stories

Need to use up that baguette? Here's how.

Heirloom panzanella salad. Photo: YumSugar

Each Thursday, we round up a selection of scrumptious links from our friends over at YumSugar. Here's what they've got cooking this week:

Heirloom tomatoes get thrown into a tasty summer panzanella.

The addictive qualities of Neapolitan-style mac and cheese from Lidia Bastianich.

A discussion of the insanity that is Brian Boitano's new cooking show.

Toll House cookie dough is back after that E. coli scare.

A rundown of the wackiest-named dishes cooked up by Rachael Ray.

Planks of corn on the cob get the salad treatment.

Do you love or hate gelatin?

• Does your fridge organization compare to restaurant critic Corey Mintz's? (Look above, then click the link for a rundown of what's what.)
• Just in time for ski season -- a rundown of restaurants in Collingwood, courtesy of Chef Michael Bonacini.
  
• Working around LCBO limitations -- ways to get great wine delivered straight to your door.
• Campbell's soup, mac and cheese, and dining on fixed incomes.
• Review: It's called The Kitchen, but is more of a bar with food forgotten.
• Wine: Hockey wines that miss the mark and more.
• Recipes: Panzanella and Chicken with Fresh Apricots

I'm a bit, well, smitten with Smitten Kitchen. Everything looks so darned delicious, and while some sites inspire me to keep a recipe for the future, Smitten inspires impatience that leads to me trying out the recipes as soon as humanly possible, especially the rainbow-hued panzanella.

As Deb says: "there's no better way to take in late-summer produce than with a panzanella." Now that I've actually had it, I can agree. While I've overdosed salads with croutons before, I have never explored the world of bread salads until last night. This is, by far, the perfect way to say goodbye to summer. While fresh vegetables can make great cooked dishes, only a nice salad or raw mixture like this can adequately offer the rich flavors of summer -- the sweet peppers balance the onion, while the delicious bite of the champagne vinegar is softened by the large chunks of bread.

It can easily be adapted -- I just loosely followed the ingredients list for the bowl I mixed up last night (seen above). However, I would strongly suggest not messing with the vinaigrette and trying it as-is. The mixture is excellent, and must, must, must have champagne vinegar.

One of the dishes I look forward to making when summer rolls around is the tomato salad you see above. It's nothing particularly special, just some chopped tomato (I use whatever I have on hand that is ripe, this time it was a bunch of sweet grape tomatoes) tossed with some roughly minced onion (I like red, but you can use whatever you have around) and some shredded basil. It gets dressed with salt, pepper and a glug of olive oil. And that's it.

The thing is that when you let this salad stand around for half an hour or so before serving, it becomes something far greater than just a collection of modest ingredients. The salt draws the liquid out of the tomatoes, which blends with the oil, creating a heavenly dressing. The basil softens and releases fragrant oils, which gently permeates the other ingredients. I can not possibly begin to describe how good it tastes.

Another nice thing about this salad, is that while it is wonderfully simple, it can also be elevated. Sometimes I'll add some cubed cucumber to it for added crunch, along with some small, halved mozzarella balls. It also takes to homemade croutons really nicely. If that's too much work for a simple meal, just grab a hunk of bread to mop of all the juices that will be left at the bottom of the bowl.

The one problem with this dish is that you can only make it during the summer, when tomatoes are ripe. It is bland and unexciting when made with those pale pink orbs that imitate tomatoes during the rest of the year. So do yourself a favor and make it when tomatoes are in season and your basil plant is growing like a weed. And enjoy a perfect summer dish.