Cooking - Bruschetta and Caesar Dressing

Last night, I decided to cook because now that I have my own place it's something I do more than twice a year. It also gave me an excuse to wear my cute new apron. 

First up is a bruchetta recipe from Delish.com that claims to be a similar recipe to the one made in the movie Julie & Julia (great movie by the way for those who haven't seen it) .

1 loaf(s) (8 ounces) Italian bread
1 clove(s) (large) garlic, cut in half
1 1/4 pound(s) (8 medium) ripe plum tomatoes, seeded and cut into 1/4-inch pieces
2 tablespoon(s) fresh basil leaves, thinly sliced
2 tablespoon(s) extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 teaspoon(s) salt
1/8 teaspoon(s) ground black pepper

-Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Meanwhile, slice bread diagonally into scant 1/2-inch-thick slices; reserve ends for making bread crumbs another day. Place bread slices on 2 cookie sheets. -Toast bread on 2 oven racks 15 minutes or until crusty and dry, turning slices over once and rotating cookie sheets between upper and lower racks halfway through baking. Transfer bread to wire racks to cool slightly. When bread is cool enough to handle, rub 1 side of each toast slice with cut side of garlic. Discard garlic.
-Meanwhile, in small bowl, gently toss tomatoes, basil, oil, salt, and pepper until combined.
-To serve, spoon 1 heaping tablespoon tomato mixture on garlic-rubbed side of each toast slice


 Very simple and straight to the point recipe which is nice after working all day.  I started with cutting up the bread and placing them on cookie sheets, but instead of following the recipe's directions and turning the oven to 350F, I decided that I would be a smarty pants and I would turn the oven to broil to toast the bread faster.  For those who have never used the broil function on their oven before it heats the oven to the highest temperature so you REALLY need to keep your eye on what you have in there.  First batch of bread came out prefect, no problem.  Second batch went in and I began working on the tomatoes I got a little preoccupied and well the second batch wasn't as perfect. Oops.

 

 

 

Next step after toasting and burning the bread was to seed the tomatoes.  I had never seeded a tomato in my life before yesterday.  I probably could have Youtube the correct way to do this, but I kind of just made up my own technique and in the end it worked out.  All that was left was measuring out the spices and mixing it all together.

 

 

 

 



 

 



To go with the bruschetta I decided Caesar salad would be yummy and that I'd make my own dressing.  This recipe came from thefoodnetwork.com and is rated as an easy recipe.  Since we've just moved in together we don't have all the fancy cooking supplies.  I used a full scale blender when I should have used a smaller food processor. 

Ingredients:
6 cloves garlic, mashed and minced
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon Vinegar
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1/2 cup olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Lemon juice
minced anchovy fillet (optional)
Directions

Combine garlic, mustard, vinegar and two pinches of salt in a blender and mix thoroughly. Add mayonnaise and blend together to form a thick base. In a slow stream add olive oil through hole in lid. Scrape dressing with spatula into a bowl and season to taste with salt, pepper and lemon juice. If desired, add anchovy to dressing to create a deeper, saltier taste.

After the broiler situation you'd think I'd 100% follow the directions for the dressing, but nope I've got to live on the edge and make up my own directions obviously.  I threw the first ingredients into the blender and decided to ignore that I was supposed to mince the garlic cloves before adding them into the blender.  My thought process was that it's going into the blender so it'll blend them up...nope.  I ended up having to dig out the garlic cloves that were covered in the mustard and vinegar paste type substance and mincing them up like it was suggested in the first place.  Everything after that went smoothly.  I left out the anchovy's because i'm not a fish fan and I wasn't going to cut up fishes and the thought of them kind of grosses me out.  The dressing came out yummy and wow super garlicky.  Luckily both Dean and I love garlic, but this is definitely not a first date kind of dressing and it'll keep all the Cullens away for sure.

It took about 30-45 mins to prep and make everything which for me is a good length of time.  The food turned out great.  I had never actually had bruschetta before today and I can now say that I'm a huge fan.  And by the way...3 hours later I still have garlic breath!  Next time I'll try and make my own croutons instead of using store bought and I promise to completely follow the directions for that.