This Summer’s Bruschetta

With a strong basil scent still in my hair and olive oil smudged on my hands I start writing my first post.

Bruschetta

It’s the first day of my summer vacation and yesterday’s baccalaureates exam already seems a lifetime away. So, after a few long exhausting weeks, I finally woke up this morning with an appetite for life; and what better way to indulge myself than with a healthy breakfast infused with summer’s aromas?

I walked in the back yard this morning hoping to catch a glimpse of bright blue skies. To my surprise, I got more than the joy of seeing a new beautiful day begin. When the scent of basil invaded my senses I got the idea for the perfect thing to eat on such a warm summer day: tomato bruschetta with olive oil, garlic with a kiss of fresh basil.

Bruschetta is a food whose origin dates to at least the 15th century from central Italy. It has many variations, but they mostly consist of toasted bread rubbed with garlic and topped with virgin olive oil and other ingredients. Popular recipes involve basil, tomato, mozzarella, red pepper, beans and even cured meat. My version is a lot simpler though. I use whole bread, extra virgin olive oil, tomato, garlic, a dash of salt and fresh basil that my father grows in the backyard.

Basil

Basil is such an easy plant to grow. You can grow it any garden, on your balcony, even in your kitchen. I’ve known people to have a pot with basil in their bathrooms. I’m guessing they use it as a room freshener… Anyway, it’s not pretentious and its aroma is absolutely amazing!

So here’s what you need for your  bruschetta:

• A tomato
• Two slices of bread
• A spoon of virgin olive oil
• A bit of garlic
• A few leafs of basil
• A dash of salt and pepper if it suits your taste

Here’s what you do:

Bread and garlic

You toast your pieces of bread on a grill or you just put them in the handy toaster. I use an electric grill. I don’t have a toaster yet…I chose whole bread for its health superiority when compared to white bread, but any kind of bread is just fine.

While your bread is getting nice and toasty cut the tomato into small pieces. You could try chopping them into small cubes, but any shape is good.

Rub your piece of bread with garlic on both sides to give it that strong garlic taste.

Sprinkle that spoon of olive oil over the bread and let it get absorbed inside of it.

Spread your tomato over the bread and then dazzle the basil leafs. These can be whole, or cut into smaller pieces. I’ve cut mine.

Season the whole thing with salt and pepper to your taste.

Enjoy!

Nutritional Information for those who are curious

I couldn’t help but calculate the nutritional information for this… I didn’t take the garlic, basil, salt and pepper into account because they’re just for the aroma. But for two pieces of whole bread, a large tomato and a spoon of live oil we have:

• 261 calories
• 9.8 grams of fat
• 45 grams of carbohydrates
• 8 grams of protein

You can burn this off with:

• One hour of walking
• 25 minutes of jogging
• 38 minutes of cycling
• 22 minutes of swimming