Bruschetta for Book Club

There are so many recipes that I want to try and with each new issue of Cooking Light or Fine Cooking even more get dog eared and added to the list. I have a small bookcase full of wonderful cookbooks and a list of other ones I want despite the fact that I haven’t even cooked out of some of the ones I have. Yet I still find myself at a loss of what to make sometimes. Sometimes it is that I am not exactly sure what I am in the mood for or that I need something that fits certain requirements such as it can be made in advance, feed a crowd, travel well, etc. This happened to me this week as it is Book Club week. Book Club meets at six o’clock which presents a small challenge to come up with something that I can pretty much grab or put a finishing touch on when I get home from work and then have it be ready to go. I wanted to take something in the heavy appetizer realm that wasn’t a dip. There are so many appetizers I want to try in fact I just got a special edition of Fine Cooking all on appetizers, yet I couldn’t come up with anything that caught my eye and fit the requirements. It came down to today where I had to pick something or go empty handed, so I reverted to an old stand by of bruschetta. It is a different version than I have done before with mushrooms, but it is still not exciting. I am sure that no matter how many cookbooks or magazines I have I’ll still find myself at a loss of what to make again, but a few more cookbooks might help, right? Just kidding Russ… we’ll kind of….

To make the Mushroom and Parmigiano Bruschetta you deseed a tomato and chop it. You add sherry vinegar, fresh basil, salt, sugar, capers, and red pepper to it. Then you sauté the sliced mushrooms, green onions, and garlic in a little butter for a couple minutes. Once the mushroom mixture is done you toss it with the tomato mixture and serve it over slices of baguette. I decided to double the recipe and toast the baguette slices for a minute in the broiler.

The bruschetta turned better than I had thought. They were quite tasty and I loved how it showcased the flavor and texture of the mushrooms. Russ rates the bruschetta a 8.