bruschetta with ricotta and oven-roasted tomato

 

Let me take a minute to talk about how I struck lucky and ended up with the best boyfriend out there. Boyfriend seems like sort of an odd, backwards term to describe him given that we've been pretty much married for what feels like a decade (in a good way!). He's rational, sane, unselfish and when you get down to it, an honest to goodness good person. He humours me even though he doesn't laugh at all my jokes.

For example, today we were out running boring errands (of the Home Depot and Canadian Tire variety). One of the items we needed to purchase was some storage jars for our kitchen. While walking down St. Laurent on our way to Canadian Tire, I spotted a kitchen store and suggested that we look in there. There was no way that we'd possibly find any reasonably priced storage jars in a place like this, but I really just wanted to poke around anyways and, you guessed it, Adam humoured me.

And, surprise of all surprises... the man who does not like to part with his money in return for objects actually offered to buy me, as a little present and for no occasion at all, a new pepper grinder and a food scale. These were totally his ideas. I can't express to you how momentous this was. I was totally stunned.

I used my fancy new pepper grinder tonight on these gorgeous, tasty and unfussy little toasts. They were simple and delicious - the bold flavour of the roasted tomato was nicely balanced by the mild ricotta. I really enjoyed these and I hope that you do too.

bruschetta with ricotta and oven-roasted tomato
Adapted from Simple Italian Sandwiches: Recipes from America's Favourite Panini Bar.

2 tomatoes (preferably on the vine), sliced 1/4 inch thick
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1 cup ricotta cheese
8 1-inch slices of baguette, sliced at a slight diagonal
extra virgin olive oil
salt and and freshly ground pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 275ºF and place your tomatoes on a foil lined baking pan. Season with salt and drizzle half of the balsamic vinegar over them. Place in the oven and bake for 20 minutes. At this stage, pull them out and drizzle the last half of the vinegar and continue roasting for a further 20 minutes.

Toast or grill your baguette slices. Spread about 2 tbsp of ricotta cheese on each one, then top with a tomato. Drizzle with a small amount of good olive oil, then finish them off with salt and pepper.  Serve immediately.