Panzanella is a very simple, moist and fresh bread salad from Tuscany. Panzanella is a great summer recipe because you don’t have to turn on the oven – no cooking is required.  Crunchiness doesn’t come from the bread but from the cucumbers and onions. Its fresh ingredients (and a little water) rejuvenate day-old bread, while keeping your house as cool as possible in the middle of the summer. This is the heart of this fresh salad!

I have seen several panzanella recipes around the internet that recommend toasting the bread or making croutons or perfect bread cubes, but I don’t. You shouldn’t have to – stale bread is already hard! Every time I’ve eaten panzanella deep in the heart of Tuscany, or made it myself, no one turns on an oven, and the only tool you need with the bread is your own hands.

Let me repeat that: you don’t need to toast your bread for panzanella! No croutons, please.

The most authentic bread to use is (unsalted) Tuscan bread. Since it’s made without salt, it took some getting used to when I lived there. If you’ve never tried unsalted bread, do. You’ll notice something’s “wrong” immediately. If you don’t have Tuscan bread on hand, you’ll want bread that’s not going to get soggy/mushy but will crumble when moistened.

Do you have a really good bottle of extra virgin olive oil sitting in your back cupboard you’ve been afraid to open but were waiting for a special occasion? This is the time to open it. The better the olive oil, the fresher the basil, the sweeter the tomatoes – each ingredient will make this salad more delicious.

The list of ingredients for the salad is quite short. What’s “missing” from this recipe? Nothing! Olives, cheese, capers, balsamic vinegar, bell peppers…you don’t need them! Of course, after you try traditional traditional panzanella the first time, you may want to add some more ingredients – but keep that oven off!

Panzanella Salad Recipe

Note: Remember that the bread should be the star of this dish, so keep its quantity higher than the other ingredients. Using unsalted Tuscan bread requires a little extra salt be put into the salad – make sure you taste it after adding the olive oil and vinegar to determine how much salt to add.

Day-old bread (unsalted Tuscan is most authentic)
Cucumber, peeled
Tomatoes (Roma/San Marzano/plum varieties suggested)
Basil leaves
Red Onion
Olive oil & vinegar
Salt & Pepper

Suggestions for serving two people: 4-5 slices of day-old bread (1/2 loaf), 1 cucumber, 4 (Roma / small) tomatoes (or 1-2 large), 5-10 basil leaves, 1/4 red onion.

1. Take the day-old bread, and lightly moisten it under the faucet. It should be moistened all the way through. If it’s too wet, gently squeeze excess water from the bread with your hands and set aside while chopping vegetables. The bread should crumble, not clump/collapse or get soggy.
2. Shred the bread into a large salad bowl. I like to keep some larger pieces of bread in my panzanella, but you can crumble the bread down until there are very fine pieces, or “breadcrumbs” that resemble more couscous.
3. Cut the cucumbers and tomatoes into pieces and add them to the bowl. Thinly slice a red onion and chiffonade the basil (or shred it with your hands).
4. Add vinegar and olive oil and mix completely (start with a small amount of each, like 1 T. of vinegar and 3 T. of olive oil) and add more to taste. Taste before adding salt and pepper.
5. The salad can be served immediately or chilled for 30 minutes in the refrigerator before serving.

Have you had traditional panzanella? How do you make panzanella at home?

Some other links that embrace the traditional “panmolle” (soft bread) concept:

• Panzanella from Divina Cucina
• Panzanella from Epicurious
• Panzanella from Cook Almost Anything
• Clotilde from Chocolate and Zucchini addresses the panzanella “authenticity” problem in her own panzanella post

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If you haven’t taken a look at the comments from the Pocket Coffee giveaway, be sure to check out over 80 tips and encouragements for keeping up your energy! Thanks to everyone for participating. The winner of the Pocket Coffee giveaway is:

• Comment #3  Paula : Send me your address!

The truth is I haven’t been in my own kitchen in a month of weekends, due to the move, having company and this weekend will be no different as I’ll be heading to Dublin to see my father for a few hours. If you have tips / sites / links, please leave them in the comments or send them to my twitter account with a @rosso reply!

One of those lovely weekends I spent deep in the heart of Tuscany at a friend’s wedding. I’m going to share a few pictures here with you of “before the ceremony”

The vintage car she had to take her, her father and her daughter to the ceremony and the bridal couple “gli sposi / sposini” to the reception.

The flower girl, also her daughter, tugging at an itchy tag on her beautiful dress. Later, she would run around the reception in comfortable clothes.

Italians are known for their fashion sense, and weddings are a great time to get some inspiration…or to laugh at some of the outlandish outfits. But I loved the purple Converse that the bride’s teenage brother wore with his suit.

I loved the bride’s dress, especially the little shrug she had to keep her shoulders covered. I find more and more brides are straying away from pure white dresses and are moving toward cream – my own was an off-white.

The bouquet is one of my favorite things about weddings, especially when vibrant colors are framed by a creamy dress.

It was unfortunately overcast for most of the weekend, and while it didn’t rain on the bride, the sun did come out right as they were exiting the church to give us a bit of blue sky.

What are your favorite scenes from a wedding? Do you have a favorite pose or behind-the-scenes photo you love seeing?

Next….after the ceremony, the couple gets showered with rice…and pasta!

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Related Articles at Ms. Adventures in Italy:

• Italian Weddings: Greeting the Bride and Groom with Rice, Pasta and Confetti
• A Wedding in Sicily and a Sicilian Food Feast: The Desserts
• A Pugliese wedding in Abruzzo at Castello di Septe

So, I don’t often talk about what it’s like to live in Italy since this is more of a food, recipes, travel blog instead of an expat blog, but where I live, it’s definitely not like living under the Tuscan Sun. Milan is a city, albeit a city surrounded by a beautiful country that is Italy.

Instead, today I’ll talk you about someone who IS living under the Tuscan sun, expat veteran Judy Witts Francini, aka Divina Cucina. She has her own blog, which you should definitely check out, and we were supposed to meet a few weeks ago but thanks to a stupid train strike, that meeting didn’t work out. I was so pleased to get her new cookbook, Secrets from my Tuscan Kitchen: Divina Cucina’s Recipes by Judy Witts Francini in the mail with a nice note from her, and I couldn’t wait to try it out.

Judy is an expat who came here 25 years ago, and stayed. I’ve only been here for 6 years, which some days seems like a long time, but then I meet someone like Judy and I realize…I’m just getting started.

Judy’s made her first cookbook, written, produced and printed locally here in Italy – Secrets from my Tuscan Kitchen: Divina Cucina’s Recipes by Judy Witts Francini – I hope you check it out. David Lebovitz posted Perfect Panna Cotta from the cookbook as well!

In continuing in my “I Dare” food cooking challenge of 12 Fresh Pastas this year, I knew I wanted to make a pasta with spinach and Judy’s Salsa di Noci – Walnut Sauce / Pesto is great with the spinach pasta!

I called the pasta I made “Reginette” but they are not true Reginette which are wide ribbons but have wavy edges and therefore are difficult to do at home without special tools…but I think they’re close enough! You can make tagliatelle or fettucine instead of you prefer. I also fried up some sage leaves for a garnish.

Fresh Spinach Pasta

For 3-4 servings. Can be easily doubled.

150g fresh spinach
200g flour
1 egg

1. In a food processor, puree the fresh spinach with the egg until all pieces are well chopped.
2. Add the flour and pulse until just mixed together.
3. Turn dough out onto floured surface and knead for 8-10 minutes until pasta is elastic and smooth. Add more flour if dough is too sticky.
4. Form into a ball, lightly oil it and cover it with plastic wrap. Place in fridge for 30-60 minutes.
5. Divide the dough into at least two pieces (if the recipe is doubled, 4 pieces) and loosely form a rectangle shape with your hands. With a rolling pin (or pasta machine), roll out the dough.
6. With a ravioli cutter, cut the pasta into 1/2 inch strips wide and 6-8 inches long.
7. Cook pasta for 8-10 minutes in salted boiling water.

Salsa di Noci – Walnut Sauce

from Secrets from my Tuscan Kitchen: Divina Cucina’s Recipes by Judy Witts Francini

Note from Judy: This sauce is traditionally served with ravioli filled with spainch and ricotta or with tagliatelle. I like to serve it on bread as an appetizer.

6oz. walnuts (170g)
2 garlic cloves
2 slices white bread
1/4c. milk
3 T. olive oil
Salt

1. Remove the crusts from the bread and soak in a little milk, just enough to wet the bread.
2. In a food processor, blend the bread with the walnuts and garlic until pureed.
3. Add salt to taste, then add olive oil and blend again.
4. It can be thinned with more milk until you have the consistency you desire.

Want to make more fresh pasta? Try some of my other fresh pasta recipes:

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Porchetta Maremmana.

Porchetta is a young pig, left with the head intact, that is de-boned and stuffed with spices such as rosemary and garlic, and sometimes even lard, then roasted in a wood-burning oven for hours. It can then be sliced and eaten or used to fill sandwiches.

My neighbors growing up often roasted a pig in the ground, so seeing a pig’s body like this is not so surprising to me. For others, it might be. I’m assuming I have a slightly more varied and international readership than YumSugar (who seemed heavily weighted towards vegetarians and Americans), but I actually have no idea. I’m curious about your feelings…

So, fill in the blank: When I look at these pictures, I ……….

Original YumSugar post here.

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