Cooking Italy: Tomato Bruschetta

      One of the other Whisk Chicks from Whisk Wednesdays, Angela, is Italian and loves her Italian heritage and Italy's cuisine.  After seeing many of Angela's fantastic recipes on her blog, I persuaded her to begin an Italian cooking blog-along of her own (something she had been contemplating for awhile) for purely selfish reasons on my part:  I have always wanted to know how to cook Italian food, as it is Mark's favorite, and so far my repertoire is limited to Spaghetti and Meatballs and Fettuccine Alfredo, both of which are fairly good and made from scratch, well, everything but the pasta that is.  And, so, Cooking Italy was born. 

      Angela has set the agenda as one menu a month, consisting of four different dishes, with the posting requirements generally of posting one recipe a week on Mondays.  We are cooking from the book Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan. 

      The first recipe was Tomato Bruschetta, something to warm up the appetite before the main course, and is found on pages 73-74. 

      Since Cathy and I are also doing (but not posting as really, there is probably too much posting going on here as it is) recipes from Artisan Breads in 5 Minutes a Day, I decided to make the baguette I was going to use for the slices of bread for the bruschetta, the idea being that I could make it small and use thick and thin slices so people around here could have a choice:  Barbie portions or not.   

      Made the bread, baked the bread, diced up the tomatoes, squished the garlic and rubbed it on the warm grilled bread slices, topped it with the tomatoes, salt and pepper, drizzled on a little olive oil, and finished it with a sprinkling of fresh basil from the plant on the deck.   Simple, easy, and oh, so delicious! 

      If you would like to see Angela's lovely rendition (she has such a way with food styling), you can go to Spinach Tiger where you will also find a connect to the Cooking Italy group, the schedule, and the upcoming menu recipes.

      Next week's recipe is Pasta and Pesto with Potatoes and Green Beans and can be found on pages 177-178.