"Hold The Lettuce, Bring On The Bread" salad

  Not that I have anything against lettuce in fact I love arugula, but I eat salads for the goodies not because they are healthy.

The lovely Mrs. Kimberlee Jefferson shared this recipe with me and it is just my style! 
http://weelicious.com/2011/07/11/tomato-bread-salad/

The site is Weelicious and provides healthy recipes for all ages.  

Most of the ingredients came right out of my CSA box that is delivered directly to my doorstop via
http://www.farmfreshtoyou.com/index.php
if you are interested in signing up mention my name and I get a free box :)

To make this recipe even easier Fresh & Easy makes pre-made focaccia dough that takes 12 minutes to bake.  Let the dough sit on the counter while the oven warms up and you are chopping veggies.  Then just spray the cookie sheet, roll the dough out, sprinkle it with herbs, poke it with a fork and put it in the oven.

There is a lot of room to play with this one so you can either follow the recipe in the link or clean out your fridge.  Really, any veggie would do great in here. One of my favorite tricks is thawing out a frozen bag of peas or corn in the fridge.  They remain crunchy and cold, it's really refreshing and a major a time saver. Just chop what ever you have on hand up into chunky bite sized pieces and you're good.  I wanted something colorful, hearty and summery. I used green onions, left out the olives, added some jalapeno, sweet yellow peppers, feta and used Meyer lemon olive oil.  This would make an excellent gazpacho or you could make it more like an antipasto bu keeping the olives and adding salami.

Let the bowl sit in the fridge a bit so the flavors meld.  Once your bread has cooled cut it into crouton size pieces and mix with the salad just before serving.  If you find you have left over bread (never in my house) freeze it for your next tomato-bread salad or for stuffing.

Tomato-Bread Salad and Grilled Halibut

I drizzled a little heirloom tomato balsamic glaze on top and it was delicious.
The presentation is much better than the credit my phone photo gives.