Yesterday was a long day. I took the train to work, which gets me home from work at 6pm instead of 4:30.  It is a trade off – because I enjoy my time on the train (reading or taking a nap or hanging out with my friend Tim who also takes the train to work).  I hate getting home so late because sometimes I do not make it to work out or run after such a long day.  But yesterday I still made it to the gym where I was on the elliptical machine for 40 minutes, I did four miles.

I didn’t leave the gym until 7:15 and then I went over to Whole Foods to buy the ingredients for a new recipe for Panzanella Salad.

Ingredients to Buy:

Three tomatoes

White beans

Italian bread

Red onion

Ingredients already at home:

Olive oil

Salt and Pepper

Fresh Basil

Parmesan cheese

Balsamic vinegar

Instructions:

Dice up tomatoes, red onion, chop basil, put into a large bowl.

Cut up bread (into bite sized pieces) and place on cookie sheet. Spray with olive oil. Place in oven set at 385 degrees just until bread is crunchy. [Note: Whole Foods was out of Italian and French bread when I got there at 7:30 last night – so I went with sour dough bread. It was perfect with the recipe!]

Open can of cannellini beans, rinse and put into the large bowl with other ingredients.

Drizzle bowl with olive oil (two tablespoons approximately?), balsamic and season lightly with salt and pepper. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of Parmesan cheese on top.

Mix all together.

Once the bread is toasted you can incorporate directly into the salad, or reserve the bread to add when salad is being served.

This dish was amazing. Mom and I each had a bowl for dinner and we each have another serving for lunch today. It took me about twenty minutes to put all of it together, so we did not have dinner until 8:30 last night – but it was well worth the wait. I promise you that this will quickly become a summer staple for either lunch or dinner in my house!

Pictures to follow later today!

Happy Tuesday, everyone!