Hot bruschetta

When your meal is this simple: 

But oh so good...

My husband was watching cooking shows on PBS yesterday and I meandered into the living room just in time to catch Jacques Pepin prepare a dish my husband deemed "hot reverse bruschetta". 

It looked like comfort food and sounded extremely simple. Of course today, shopping for ingredients, Trader Joes wasn't selling shallots, so I substituted a red onion, skipped the thyme and basil and whipped this up, single serving style for lunch.  

Hot Bruschetta

Single serving

One tomato (beefsteak or medium/large vine ripened) 

1/6 of a baguette (seeded, if possible!)

1/3 of a small red onion

1 clove of garlic

Olive oil 

Salt

Pepper

Spray oil

Preheat oven 400 degrees.

Spray oil a individual cassoulet dish. 

Slice the tomato and place at the bottom of the dish.

Cut baguette into small chunks.

Slice the onions and garlic thinly.  

Mix bread, onions and garlic in a bowl with enough olive oil to coat the bread.  

Salt and pepper the tomatoes in the dish and the bread mixture.  

Place the bread mixture on the tomatoes.  

Bake for 30-40 minutes until tomatoes are soft and bread is crispy.  

Enjoy and follow with breath mints.  😁

Grocery Life

Both this week and last week we've gone over on groceries.  We've had to stock up on basics like flour and oil and we've been hosting a teen sized guest for the last few months on the weekends, so our eggs and milk disappear a little faster.   We have an entertainment budget, $100 a month, to be used on food and alcohol when having guests, which helps monetarily but doesn't simplify our budget. Things do tend to get a little mixed.  My nephew may have a peanut butter sandwich from our normal food budget, but we used taco Tuesday's left over sour cream from the entertainment budget for Saturday's normal budget coffee cake.  

I'm also saving up the entertainment budget for Thanksgiving, which I'm hosting, so I should be pinching pennies but regardless, I'm pretty sure the food budget will settle down and even out by the end of the year.  There's always a lot of eating out and parties, so I'm sure we will catch up.  

This weeks groceries: $55 

Budget: $25 weekly per person 

Last weeks groceries: $70. 

So as you can see, we are at least $25 dollars short in our grocery budget endeavor. $33.00 short to be exact.