To me, the best part about having a garden is harvesting and eating the things you have worked so hard to grow. While our garden certainly isn’t massive, we have managed to produce a variety of vegetables and herbs this summer, and I love finding ways to incorporate the things we have grown into everyday recipes. Cooking is something that I have managed to get better at over the last several years, and I firmly believe that the key to success is not over complicating things. I don’t care what anybody says, cooking is not hard, and you do not need a ton of fancy tools to do it well.

In my totally unbiased opinion… Italian cuisine is the gold standard of cooking. I love it not only because it’s obviously delicious, but because most Italian recipes are very simple to make, and are made with very fresh ingredients. That’s where the garden comes in.

Recently, the Wolf and I made a very easy, Italian crostini recipe. I love this dish because it comes together quickly, most people are going to like it, and it’s a fun appetizer that makes it look like you know what you’re doing in the kitchen.

For this recipe, you will need:

• A baguette (if your baguette is stale it doesn’t matter!)
• Cherry tomatoes
• A spicy pepper
• Garlic
• Olive Oil
• Vinegar
• Parmesan cheese (or any cheese you like)
• Basil
• Salt & pepper

You will notice I didn’t include measurements or how much of anything you need…That’s because it doesn’t really matter. If you want to use a bunch of cherry tomatoes, great. If you want to use three cloves of garlic cause you love garlic, rock on. With this recipe, you really cant mess it up.

To prepare, your going to:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and coat your pan with olive oil
2. Chop your bread on the diagonal, and add your bread pieces to the pan (drizzling with some additional olive oil)
3. While your bread is in the oven you’re going to chop up your tomatoes, garlic, and peppers, and pop them in a mixing bowl with some olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper
4. Mush it all together in your bowl with a large spoon!
5. When your bread is golden brown (I usually just keep an eye on it) you can take it out of the oven and begin toping each piece of bread with your tomato/garlic mushy mixture (Big tip: start with spreading the “juice” of the mixture on to each piece so that the bread will soften a bit and you won’t destroy the roof of your mouth)
6. Top with basil and cheese, then enjoy!!

For our crostini, the Wolf and I used tomatoes, spicy peppers, and basil from the garden. She had a lot of fun helping me gather the ingredients and supervising as I cooked.

We hope you enjoy this quick and easy Italian crostini as much as we did!

xxx,