Scalloped Tomatoes and Croutons
Description
Soooo good – my girlfriend told me I HAD to make this and I’m so glad I listened (thanks Auntie Jino!). This is borrowed from Smitten Kitchen, where it was adapted from Ina Garten. I used more bread than the recipe called for – in fact I think I just about doubled what she used in her recipe, and I thought it was great. I used a regular ‘French’ loaf, put it into the fridge overnight to soften the crust, then trimmed the crust off and cubed it yielding about 6 cups. I then baked it in a large 11 x 13 pan so that I could keep the bread in a single layer for everything to better crisp up.
We had this for dinner tonight with some grilled chicken breasts that were first marinated in a bit of olive oil and lemon juice, yellow beans from the market and the Peach Crisp that I said was coming soon – that recipe will follow tomorrow.
Ingredients
Scalloped Tomatoes and Croutons
3 T. olive oil
6 c. bread from a French loaf – trimmed of crust and cut into 1/2 inch cubes
2 1/2 – 3 lbs. fresh tomatoes, cut into 1/2-inch dice (I happened to use Roma)
6 cloves garlic, finely minced (about 2 tablespoons)
2 T. sugar
2 t. salt
1 t. freshly ground pepper
1/2 c. thinly slivered basil leaves, lightly packed
1 c. freshly grated Parmesan cheese – and it MUST be fresh
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350. Heat the oil in a large skillet and toss the bread around to get it all toasted for 5 minutes or so. In the meantime, prepare the tomatoes and mix them up in a large bowl with the garlic, sugar, salt and pepper. When the bread is toasted and close to being a crouton, pour in the tomato mixture and cook it all together for another 5 minutes.
Remove from heat and stir in the basil, then scrape everything into a large, greased, shallow casserole dish. Top evenly with the cheese and bake for 30 – 40 minutes, depending on how crispy you’d like it to be. Unfortunately, there were no leftovers…but Smitten Kitchen recommended having a bowl of this with a poached egg on top and we all thought that would be a great idea. Enjoy!
- Category: Tomatoes, Vegetarian, One-pot Meal
Wasn’t it yummy? I even thought it was yummy prior to being baked, the basil was stronger and would be delicious over salad. xx