Herself's Recipes

This showed up in local restaurants about 1999. It has been such a hit in this area you would be hard put to find an Italian restaurant that doesn’t serve it. This version is the best adaptation we came up with from the restaurant versions. This makes a great summer meal when you can grab tomatoes and basil right out of the garden. It is traditionally served as an afternoon snack.

Ingredients
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1/4 cup olive oil
French bread, sliced about 1/2″ thick
4 large tomatoes diced
An equal amount of mozzarella cheese diced, fresh if you can get it
2 Tablespoons of balsamic vinegar
4 Tablespoons chopped fresh basil

Directions:
Put crushed garlic and olive oil into a glass dish and microwave 2 minutes
Remove garlic from olive oil and brush olive oil on to the French bread
Toast the French bread until golden brown
Mix remaining olive oil, the balsamic vinegar, tomatoes and mozzarella in a bowl

Serve the bread on a platter and spoon tomato, cheese mixture onto bread as you get ready to eat it so the sauce doesn’t make the bread soggy.

I’ve also had this down here in Houston with melted fresh mozzarella on top, then thin slices of peppers that have been roasted with Balsamic vinegar and oil are put on top.

Or in place of peppers one or two shrimp roasted in garlic butter are placed on top of the mozzarella.

Some restaurants add diced red onions to the cold tomato and mozzarella version which is also very good.

We make this often in the summer when the garden is giving up pounds of tomatoes and cucumbers daily. We usually make fresh rolls and a dipping sauce to go with it.

4 cups V-8 juice
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
4 large tomatoes diced
1 large cucumber diced
1 cup of croutons

Put everything in a bowl and let it chill about a half hour while you make the rolls and dipping sauce

Dipping sauce:
1/4 cup olive oil
2 large garlic cloves
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup grated cheese, either Parmesan or Romano
1 tbsp chopped fresh basil

Crush the garlic cloves and put into the olive oil and microwave on high for 3 minutes, let it sit and cool. After it cools add the rest of the ingredients and stir.

When the tomato plant was first discovered by Europeans in South America is was believed to be a member of the deadly Nightshade family but pretty. It was brought back to Europe purely as a decorative plant and actually made it all the way around the Mediterranean and back across the Atlantic to North America before people got up the courage to eat the thing in Colonial Times.

Gazpacho is a liquid salad from the southern Spanish region of Andalusia, made of ripe tomatoes, bell peppers, cucumbers, garlic, and bread moistened with water that is blended with olive oil, vinegar, and ice water and served cold. It probably originated as a soup during the time when Spain was part of the Islamic world in the Middle Ages, a soup the Spanish call an ajo blanco, which contained garlic, almonds, bread, olive oil, vinegar, and salt.