Last week we went to the Restaurant Round up in Amarillo. There was music, wine tasting, a “Battle of the Chefs” and a sampling of more than 30 restaurant’s fare. While there was tons of fabulous food offered by all the vendors the sampling that stood out the most to me was Basil Doc’s “Basil Bread with Bruchetta”

The next afternoon I had an incredible craving for more bruchetta, I would have drove on over to Basil Docs if only it wasn’t an hour a way. Despite the distance I thought about going anyway but decided against it. Alas, I had to make due with what I had in the fridge and to my surprise it didn’t turn out so bad.

Bruschetta for One:

1 pita bread

1 Roma tomato seeded and finely diced
1 small garlic clove finely sliced
1 TB fresh Basil (chiffonade)
1/2 tsp olive oil
1 small squeeze of fresh lemon juice (maybe 1tsp)

Slice Pita in half and put in toaster.
Meanwhile toss the remaining ingredients.
Once Pita is nicely toasted cut into wedges and serve topped with tomato mixture.

Yum, and really healthy too!
Well until I made my second batch. I crumbled in some blue cheese with the tomatoes. WOWZER! Delish! Now this is happy food.

Cook’s Helps:

To Chiffonade stack leaves, rolling them tightly, then cut across the rolled leaves with a sharp knife, producing fine ribbons.

To Seed tomato cut in half (side to side) and gently squeeze out seeds and juice. Be careful not to squish tomato other wise it will be difficult to dice. FYI: this technique is also helpful to do on tomatoes before putting them in a salad. It keeps your greens from getting soggy and seedy, thus keeping your salad crisp and clean.

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Oh, and on a side note. No, I didn’t take part in the wine tasting. For two reasons, one being that I’m not really a drinker and two that they didn’t believe I was over 21! When we walked in the door the ticket takers attached to each person a red bracelet. When asked why they said it was so you could take part in the wine tasting. When it came to me they wanted my ID. I had left it in the van but told them I was 29 (almost 30), the first lady was really nice about it but the man made it quite obvious he thought I was lying. I considered going back to the van to get my license just to prove it but decided against it. It was too cold out to walk all the way back to the parking lot and I hadn’t planned on drinking anyway. It seemed like too much effort just to prove my honesty. I decided to take it as a complement and move on. Now if they’d asked for my ID to taste that Bruschetta I would definitely had walked back to the van…