Julie and Julia inspired bruschetta.

Before I went to see Julie and Julia I prepared. I knew I was going to come away from the movie craving good food. So I marinated a flank steak and bought all of the ingredients for rosemary garlic roasted potatoes and green beans with caramelized shallots and sliced almonds to accompany the tender steak. However, what I did not prepare was an appetizer.

If you asked what struck me about the movie I will go on about Meryl Streep's delightful portrayal of Julia Child. And how I connect to this movie because my Mom used to watch Julia Child all the time. She had all of her shows on tape and she would watch them over and over again on her kitchen television while making dinner. I have the infamous Mastering the Art of French Cooking and to this day I find it ridiculously intimidating because it seems like my mom made all of her complex and interesting dishes straight from Julia's book.

Now, if you ask me what struck me about the food in the movie I will go on ad nauseaum about how I want to de-bone a duck and stuff it with meat and cover it with pastry and then cook it. I really want to give this one a try (though honestly I worry about my ability to de-bone a duck and I have informed my friends that I will require a support staff to help me when I finally decide to make this ridiculously awesome dish).

The other food that caught my eye for immediate re-creation was the bruschetta. We talked about the bruschetta all the way home. And how good it looked. So when my foodie friends and I got home we took one look at the enormous bounty of yellow tomatoes in my garden and decided that we should go ahead and make some ourselves. So, one trip to the grocery store later and we were in my kitchen. One person toasting the bread in a skillet while the others chopped tomatoes, basil, onions, garlic and fresh mozzarella and tossing them with olive oil balsamic vinegar salt and pepper.

This is a fantastic appetizer and while the toasting the bread in the pan is a little more complicated than my normal method of shoving it in the toaster oven with some butter on it, the pan toasting with olive oil is MUCH better than the other version. I may never be able to make easy bruschetta again.

Colorful Summer Bruschetta
8 yellow pear tomatoes diced
2 medium red herloom tomatoes diced
10 basil leaves sliced very thinly in a chiffonade
4T Balsamic vinegar
4T Extra Virgin Olive oil
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
3/4 cup very small balls of fresh mozz
1 clove garlic minced very tiny


9 slices of nice bread (sourdough, rustic, baguette, something crusty)
4T Extra virgin olive oil

Heat the olive oil in a skillet and toast the pieces of bread. Set aside

Place all of the ingredients for the tomato topping in a large bowl and mix them together until everything seems sufficiently coated in vinegar.
Spoon the topping over the toast and serve immediately (the toast will get soggy if it sits too long).

BON APPETIT!