Sometimes I Make Yummies

Last night I wanted something different. Something delicious for dinner that would take hardly any time at all to make. Since starting grad school I have not been able to cook as much as I would like at our house. Cooking, for me, has now become a joy of summer. But because it is summer, I don't want to turn my oven on more than I have to, which limits (to my inexperienced self) some of the only things I really know how to cook well.

*Spoiler Alert*
This recipe does make you turn your oven on, but not for long. You are browning bacon and heating up delicious bread.  Small sacrifices.

This recipe came together thanks to garden grown vegetable contributions from friends and family. Tomatoes from Caroline and Nat and a deliciously strong red onion from my mother's garden, I think, made this whole meal amazing.

So, this was an experiment. I called it Deconstructed Bruschetta.

Ingredients:

About 3-4 medium sized tomatoes.
(I had different varieties, but cherry tomatoes might be best for this recipe)
1 small red onion
a handful of fresh cilantro (or basil. Again, I just used what we had)
olive oil
balsamic vinegar
red wine vinegar
5-6 pieces of bacon
8-10 fresh balls of mozzarella cheese
1 large loaf of rustic, crusty bread
Sea salt and ground pepper to taste

To Make:

1)  Turn oven on to 300*
2) Brown the bacon in a skillet pan until nearly burned or as crispy as you can stand if you are a freak who doesn't like crispy bacon....weirdo.
3) While the bacon is cooking chop up the tomatoes and place them in a large mixing bowl.
4) Add your oil and vinegars to the bowl of tomatoes. I just eyeballed this step. Use your best judgement, it doesn't take very much.
5) Add your greenery to the bowl (cilantro or basil...or whatever else you might like!)
6) Finely chop the red onion into tiny slivers and add to bowl.
7) CHECK ON THE BACON! If it is done, remove from heat and set aside to cool. Remove from grease.
8) Place loaf of bread in oven to 'warm-up' for 5-10 minutes.
9) When bacon is cool, crumble it, but not too fine.
10) When bread is done heating, slice it. I made our slices rather thick to hold the oil and juicy run-offs from the tomato mixture.
11) Top bread with tomato mixture, pulled pieces of mozzarella cheese, and last...that delicious bacon you made.

We enjoyed our dinner with some great chianti that Grant picked up, and for dessert, we had the rest of our homemade vanilla ice cream topped with fresh raspberries.

All together, dinner took maybe 30 minutes to make because I was making it up as I went. I bet it actually doesn't take this long if you knew what you're doing first.

Enjoy! I hope someone out there likes this as much as we did!