Focaccia Bread and Tomato Salad

Un-tossed Foccacia and Tomato Salad

It's the traditional end of the school year barbecue party of IC's class this afternoon.

I planned to bring a cake and a salad. The cake I baked yesterday, after picking up more red currants, gooseberries and cherries from our backyard garden. (I will share the recipe later.)

I wanted to bring a green salad but my girls said it's boring, so I have to think of a not-boring salad to make. 

I used a baguette in this Bread and Tomato Salad

Then this morning, I realized my husband would be out almost the whole day, meaning, he would be having the car most of the day, meaning, no chance to grocery shop. I could walk, yeah, but the girls have friends over and they wanted to play in the inflatable pool. No way I would leave them alone!

But I have tomatoes, rucola and some herbs in the garden. What could I do? I searched the internet for a simple no-cook salad recipe and found this. Only I don't have any country-style bread, nor do I have arugula and basil (the snails loved our basil so much our basil patch didn't survive!). Good thing I found great alternatives: rucola and chives!

So here goes our newly-discovered salad: Focaccia Bread and Tomato Salad

Ingredients:

6 pcs. medium tomatoes, cut into small wedges
300 g lightly toasted and cut into bite-size pieces Focaccia Bread (I used the Cucina Focaccia Bread that I brought from Aldi) 
1 cup chopped rucola
some chopped chives
1/4  chopped onion
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
3 tbsp red balsamic cream
1/2 clove garlic, minced

salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Focaccia and Tomato Salad

Preparation:
1. In a large bowl, combine the tomatoes, bread, rucola, chives, and onions.

2. In a small bowl, mix together the oil, balsamic, and garlic; then drizzle dressing over salad. Season with salt and pepper. Toss and let sit for 10 minutes before serving.

I found the original recipe here at Saveur.