Grilled Bread, Peppers and Mozzarella Salad

This recipe originally came from a pull-out of a Rachael Ray magazine over 5 years ago where it included one week of meals in a handy little booklet.  I’m proud to say that we did each meal over that week and this was is a keeper that we haven’t done recently.  We were looking for a side to go through grilled pork chops or dinner and this fit the bill perfectly.

 Let's Get Crafty!

Ingredients organized by what they get used with:

1/2 baguette loaf, sliced into 1 inch thick slices

4 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon minced garlic

2 peppers of your choice, we used a combination of partial peppers on hand of yellow, red and green.

8 oz mozzarella from the deli (the little mozz balls would be good here.  We use the little ball we need to cut up because I think some of the flavor of the garlic and butter soaks into it a little bit through the knife cuts. )

1 tablespoon fresh basil, chopped right before adding to the bowl so the cut edges have less time to turn brown

Melt the butter and add the minced garlic.  Brush the mixture onto the baguette loaf slices and grill quickly on each side until toasted (set remaining aside because it will be needed again.)  Grill the peppers along with the bread- they will take just a couple extra minutes and need to be rotated multiple times.

 The love the color the peppers add

Rough chop the peppers and I like to put them in the freezer for just a couple minutes to help them cool so we don’t melt the cheese.  Once they have cooled, rough chop the grilled baguette slices and add to the bowl with the diced cubes of mozzarella cheese.

Add the remaining butter/garlic mixture to the bowl and mix to distribute.  Gentle stir the basil in.  My basil didn’t make it this year so we didn’t have fresh basil from the herb garden.  I used a stir-in paste from Gourmet Garden.  It’s supposed to be a one for one ratio but I only added a teaspoon to give it a try this first time.  After eating it – that felt like enough for me and I would probably always do less.

Put in the fridge for just 30 minutes or so and then it’s ready to serve.

Thanks for stopping by!  I hope you're having a wonderful day.