Peach Panzanella

Hey all, it has been a summer. Silence on this blog is equivalent to chaos in life. It’s a good gauge of whether I have margin in my life or not. And if you follow my blog, then you can see that the past two months have not afforded much margin. We have had amazing adventures, though! For work we had to relocate to Fort Collins, Colorado for about six weeks. We took advantage of weekends off to visit the four national parks there and enjoyed seeing some beautiful country. We went on a mission trip with our church to work with kids in El Salvador for a week during that time. And to top it all off, we spent four days camping in Glacier National Park. I highly recommend a visit if you can do it. Mountain goats, bighorn sheep, and grizzlies, oh my!

After all of those adventures, we came home to the adventure of cleaning houses to rent and packing up to move to Puerto Rico for a year. We’ll be working at the University of Puerto Rico in Mayaguez, engaging students in exploring Christianity and investigating the Bible. The island is quite raw from María, and in fact, everything shut down out of fear of Dorian (he detoured north and didn’t touch us). Here is my view as I type…

Is this real life?! For the next ten months, it will be for us. After arriving on the island homeless and almost signing the papers to rent another house, we found this beauty for sale. I had no idea what the inside of the house looked like, nor did I really care. I will be homeschooling our four kids this year, and when I saw this, I thought, “Maybe we won’t kill each other if we live here!” Day five, and so far everyone is still alive! But we haven’t started school yet… The pool is currently green and filled with algae. We’re trying to learn how to get it clean and swimmable for recess time. Or just for cool-off time because sweat is our new eau de toilette.

You can cut fresh mozzarella into cubes or use these little balls

Basil from my garden

I should probably be planning out starting school next week, but I was encouraged by my dear to blog instead. He loves me greatly and knows me well. And he knows that I’ve actually been stressed about not sharing this peach panzanella recipe before peach and tomato season ends. Please do me a favor and make this in the next week while you still can. For a Labor Day picnic or just because. It is easy and divine. If we don’t finish the panzanella in one sitting, we eat it up as leftovers on the next day. Still delicious, even with soggy bread.

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Peach Panzanella

Course Salad

Cuisine American

Ingredients

• 1 crusty baguette or half of a rustic French loaf
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 3 peaches, cubed
• 3 tomatoes, cubed
• 8 oz fresh mozzarella, cubed (or Ciliegine Mozzarella balls)
• 15 basil leaves, sliced

For the vinaigrette

• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 3 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp pepper

Instructions

1. Cut bread into 1-inch cubes. Place cubed bread on a rimmed baking sheet and drizzle with 3 tbsp olive oil and a sprinkle of salt. Bake at 350° for 15 minutes. (This can be done several hours in advance).

Make the vinaigrette

1. Combine 1/3 cup olive oil, red wine vinegar, garlic, salt and pepper in a glass bottle or jar. Shake or whisk to combine. (This can be made a day or so in advance).

Assemble salad

1. Fifteen minutes before serving, combine the toasted bread cubes, peaches, tomatoes, mozzarella and basil in a large bowl. Pour the vinaigrette on top and gently toss everything together. Season with extra salt and pepper to taste.

Notes

Source: The Forest Feast Gatherings