A Tasty App to Tide You Over

For us - and many of our friends - weeknight dinners are a toughie. Both spouses are working all day, and we are still terrible at planning ahead, so it's rare to have meat defrosted and a meal ready to start when we get home. We are working on that, but in the meantime, this dilemma usually leaves us rummaging for an appetizer to tide us over while we set to work on the main course. Speed is the goal (we're hungry!), so that's why I love any appetizer recipe that uses the elements that you're already prepping for your meal. Ta-dah! Meet Grilled Sourdough Bread with Garden Tomatoes. We tried this out when we had some friends over to grill burgers recently. Since this simple recipe uses the grill too, it gets us on our way to the main course, plus we get to use great fresh ingredients like in-season tomatoes (yay!) and basil (which I still have way too much of because of my little herb garden). How perfect is that?!

To make this quick, tasty appetizer, begin by heating your gas grill up to medium or, if you're a charcoal grill user, wait until the coals are ash white. Like I mentioned, this is perfect if you're already planning to grill a main course.

Inside (or if you have a hot plate on your grill), melt butter in a sauce pan until it sizzles, then add your chopped shallots (or onions) and garlic. Stir the mixture occasionally as you cook it on medium heat until the shallots are tender. Remove from heat.

Prep your other ingredients as well (I recruited some help from the friends who were joining us for dinner) by slicing up your tomatoes and tearing the basil into smaller pieces.

When all of  your ingredients are ready and the grill is heated up, place the slices of bread on the grill. Let each piece toast, then, flip over.

Brush each slice of toast with the butter/shallot/garlic mixture. This is when I removed my bread from the grill (so it didn't get any toastier).

Sprinkle the basil pieces on to each slice.

Layer tomatoes on top, then drizzle each piece with a little red wine vinegar (I think balsamic vinegar would also work well).

Serve up, and enjoy this quick, fresh appetizer. It hit the spot for us and was just enough to "keep our strength up" while we waited for the main course to finish!

Try  Grilled Sourdough Bread with Garden Tomatoes the next time you plan to fire up the grill. Then rate and review them on LandOLakes.com.

Gluten free cookies never tasted so good.  Check out the next blog and see why.

Amanda is paid to write for the Land O'Lakes Recipe Buzz™ Blog.