This is one of those Sunday afternoons on the back patio, when you don’t have much in your fridge and you end up grazing all day instead of eating actual meals. It kind of came together and with a glass of wine, it was delicious.
The magical ingredient is truly fresh basil from our garden. Basil just feels like summer, and its easy to grow. Very easy to grow from a $1.99 packet of seeds. You can buy little potted herbs but basil is one I would steer away from. When you buy a basil plant you are literally doing just that, buying a basil plant, as in one. A single recipe and you pluck every leaf and end up with a rickety stalk not likely to produce any more. I planted a seed pack in a large pot in our backyard, you could do it in the ground too but the point is to have lots of little basil plants. Enough to snip a handful for White Bean Bruschetta and not wipe out your entire crop. Basil grows very quickly so even though we are pushing July, its not too late to plant your own pot and get it in the sun. Okay back to the other ingredients…
Recipe: White Bean Bruschetta
Ingredients
- 1 c cooked white beans
- 1 c cooked garbanzo beans
- 1 yellow bell pepper
- 1 clove garlic
- olive oil for roasting bell pepper and garlic
- 8 baby tomatoes quartered
- 1 T capers
- 1/2 shallot thinly sliced
- 1 T olive oil
- 1 T red wine vinegar
- 1/4 c sliced fresh basil
- salt and pepper to taste
- shaved Parmesan cheese
- baguette or any French or Italian bread
Instructions
- Beans can be canned or soaked overnight and cooked. I like to soak a bunch, cook them and have them in the fridge for other recipes.
- Roast the bell pepper whole and the clove of garlic in its skin, both drizzled with a little olive oil, in the oven set to broil. Rotate the pepper until the skin starts to char and blacken. Remove from oven and let sit on pan while you assemble other ingredients. The pepper will “deflate” as it sits.
- In a bowl, combine all other ingredients except cheese and bread
- Slice and toast bread
- When pepper is slightly cooled, peel off the charred skin and remove the stem and seeds. Do not rinse. Remove the garlic’s skin and smash/ mince it. Add both to the bowl including any oils that may be on the pan.
- Spoon the mixture over the toasted baguette and garnish with shaved Parmesan. The bruschetta can be served hot or cold or somewhere in between. The heat from the peppers and the beans if you just cooked them give it a nice contrast, but refrigerating the whole mixture and serving it cold is good too.
Preparation time: 20 minute(s)
Cooking time: 15 minute(s)
Number of servings (yield): 4
Microformatting by hRecipe.
