If you throw away stale bread… smack yourself! There’s no good reason to throw away bread. Take a knife, course chop the bread and toss it with your favorite dry herbs to make croutons for your next salad. Or, dump the herbed croutons into a whirlygig and pulse until you have breadcrumbs. Make a bread pudding. At the very least, chop it up, chuck it outside, and let the birds and squirrels have at it.
In the summer months my local supermarket always gets in a bunk of locally grown ripe tomatoes from my paisans in New Jersey. These big red juicy beauties are the real deal, oddly shaped the way a tomato should be. So the next time you have some stale bread lying around why not do the right thing and make this tomato and bread salad. You can serve this as a side dish to go along with just about anything, but honestly it’s so good you just might decide to stick a fork in it and forget everything else.
Need This
4 large ripe tomatoes (locally grown if you can get it)
1 clove of fresh garlic – cut in half
Olive oil for glugging (preferably Extra Virgin)
Bread (a little stale is better, but any kind of crusty bread will do) at least 2 cups
Dried or fresh oregano (or any favorite herb or herb combination)
Salt & Ground Black Pepper
1 Tablespoon of small vinegar capers (optional)
Do This
Get out a large bowl.
Grab the cut garlic halves and rub vigorously the entire inside of the bowl with the flat ends. Discard any remaining garlic.
Now rough-chop the tomatoes and the bread and place both together into the bowl. Add a couple of glugs of olive oil. Stir gently.
Add the herb(s) and the capers if using. Sprinkle a little salt and pepper over it. Taste and stir again.
Cover and let sit in the fridge for about ten minutes – but not much longer as you don’t want the bread to get too soggy.
Stir gently one more time and serve.
Serves 4. My cost Approx. $ 5.50 total – about $ 1.38 per serving.