Quick and Delishus Snack: Bruschetti

While writing yesterday's entry, it occurred to me the homey flavours of the muffins would work great with tomatoes. I kept thinking about them all day long.. tomato soups and salads, dried tomatoes, pickled tomatoes, grilled tomatoes.. yadda yadda yadda. Being only at the beginning of this blog's journey, I settled for the intense, garlic-y.. italian-y aroma of one of the simplest of dishes. Don't be fooled by its simplicity, though. The sturdy aromas of olive oil and baked tomatoes.. perfumed with just a dash of oregano release an intricate pattern of taste proportion, fighting for the attention of your papillae.

Enough about the taste bud ravishment, pick up a serrated knife and start dicing those veggies!

You will need:

4 bread slices
1/2 cup olive oil
1 heaping teaspoon oregano
4 medium garlic cloves
1 ripe tomato

For starters, I beg of you, do not resort to using graham or any seedy type of bread. I'll give you three serious reasons as to why not do that. First. In my opinion, only the simple, all purpose flour based bread complements the olive oil, giving it a chance to shine. Second. This is pretty personal, as I don't really like the taste of "fancy" breads. And three. Everybody keeps dieting, excluding any type of possible fattening agents. So basically, what people do is race every bit of "delishus" out of their meals, replacing cheese for tofu and what not. To conclude, please, take a few minutes to indulge in this luffly, aromatic side dish. This being said, we can finally carry on with the recipe. What you have to do first is find a way to douse the bread with olive oil. You can either pour some in a bowl and dip both sides of each bread slice in it, or find a way to spray the oil on. I make bruschetti pretty often, so i would love to find a mess-reducing alternative. Perhaps filling a thoroughly cleansed spray recipient with oil will do the trick? I'll try this soon and let you know.When you're done, place the bread slices on a baking tray and sprinkle a small amount of oregano on each of them. Preheat your oven and start dicing the tomatoes. If you don't have a garlic crusher, simply press down the cloves with the broad side of a knife before mincing it. This will help to better release the flavour (is it just me, or did i just sound like Jamie Oliver?hehe, I'd wish).

At the end of this process, evenly spread the garlic and tomato bits on top of your bread, and shove it in the oven. After about 5 minutes, your kitchen will start being enveloped in a very rustic, tummy-rumbling scent. Keep the bruschetti in the oven anywhere from ten to twenty minutes, depending how crunchy you want them to be. I don't see any need for extra seasoning, but if you find it necessary, don't hold back on doing so. Enjoy :)

P.S.: Did you ever notice how taking food pictures on a regular basis improves your photographic skills? To give you an idea, try browsing through an already well established blogger's photo stream, for example, the one of Souvlaki for the Soul (you can find his blog here).
Don't get me wrong, although his photos had something special from the beginning, i couldn't help but notice obvious changes in composition.
Let us hope for the best and expect the same thing will happen in my case. It's just as they say.. practice makes perfect, be it in photography or cooking.

Cheerio,
Andi