Craving Italian food is pretty much a requirement in my family. The love for pasta, pizza, marinara, tomatoes, olives, Parmesan.... yummmmmmmm.

Tonight was supposed to be a healthy broiled chicken, brown rice, and asparagus-everyone-will-love night. Unfortunately, Clark came home with the groceries for our tomorrow night guests and asked if we were having bruschetta tonight. I looked at the marinating chicken in the fridge, thought about my before-Christmas diet... and told him we were having bruschetta.

I love cooking challenges, and let me tell you, cooking bruschetta at home for the first time was a challenge. I have only ever peeled tomatoes once before, and that was two years ago when I made spaghetti sauce from scratch. So, be warned, if you're going to make this, make sure you have time set aside to do it.


Supplies:

- 6 to 7 Roma tomatoes

- 2 cloves of Garlic

- 1 tsp of Basil

- 1 1/2 tsp of Oregano

- 1 1/2 tsp of Balsamic Vinegar

- Olive Oil

- Baguette or Loaf of Italian Bread

Directions:

- Boil a pot of water. You're going to want to parboil the tomatoes, which means that once the water is boiling you want to immediately remove the water from heat, submerge the tomatoes in the still-boiling-but-not-over-heat water and let them sit/boil for one minute. Remove them from the water after one minute has passed. Do NOT let them parboil past one minute or they will be too soft/mushy.

- Cut off the ends of the tomatoes and commence to remove the skin. This process is time consuming and messy. Be prepared, because the next step is just as time consuming and just as messy.

- Next, cut the tomatoes in half (or quarter them),
and remove the seeds/juice/core. Basically, make sure that you have the shell of the tomato left and nothing else.

- Finely chop what you have left of the tomatoes. Put them into a mixing bowl with room to add a few more things.

- Mix the balsamic vinegar, 1 tsp of olive oil, basil, oregano, and garlic in with the tomatoes.

- If you haven't already, cut the baguette/Italian bread. Cut it at an angle. I'm not sure what the point of this is, but it definitely makes it look better!


- Pour enough olive oil into a sauce pan to coat the bottom (around 1 to 2 tablespoons). Turn the burner on low and place pieces of the bread into the pan. Cook each side as evenly as possible, turning them every 30 seconds to a minute. Whenever you put a new batch of bread into the pan, if you have to, turn the heat down and repeat coating the pan with olive oil.


- Remove from heat to a plate, let cool just for a moment, and scoop about a tablespoon or so of the tomato mixture onto the bread. Serve immediately and bask in the deliciousness that is your homemade bruschetta!