Tuesday Night: Panzanella

Since I made bread over the weekend, we had half a loaf of store-bought pain de compagne to use up. Panzanella seemed like a pretty good way of doing that, so here's what I did:

1/2 loaf pain de compagne, cut into 1/2"-1" cubes
2 tomatoes
4 scallions, thinly sliced including some green
1 red pepper, chopped medium
fresh parsley, chopped medium
salt, pepper to taste
olive oil, lemon juice, balsamico

Remove the seeds and pulp from the tomatoes and put them in a large bowl. Whisk those together with olive oil, lemon juice, balsamico, salt, and pepper to make a dressing. Add the bread cubes, toss well and let them soak.
Coarsely chop the flesh from the tomatoes and add them to the bread along with all the other ingredients.
Adjust seasonings and let thing stand for a bit.
Serve topped with good olive oil.

Things that I bet would be good to add to this:

1. Anchovies for the sauce
2. Arugula or some other bitter green
3. Cucumber
   

We had spags with pesto (from last week) to accompany the salad. And there was much rejoicing. :-)