My favorite recipe of the year
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Tomorrow, it’s official: summer is over.
And wow, has it ever been a good one. A great one really. Filled with more adventures, more sunshine, more fun, more events, rides, walks, outings, games, dinners outside, and love than I thought possible to pack into three short months.
I know every day and every season feels a little extra sweet thanks to our darling Lillyan, but this summer also felt sweeter because we nourished our souls in the way they were asking us to. We broke the pattern. We paused the freight train. We stopped the only thing we had done and known professionally in our lives to take things “slower”, or rather, to do things differently. For those who are new here, I’m talking about our vegetable farm: the freight train of our life for the past decade.
My reflections on this pause continue to be many, all jumbled up in the corners of my mind spilling out onto the page only occasionally. I wish I had more time to share what this journey has meant to me: this journey of pausing something I/we loved to open ourselves up to something more. I’ll keep trying.
Anyhow, as we sit here one day away from the first beautiful day of fall, I want to share one last summer recipe just in case your tomatoes are still bountiful after that last heavy rainstorm and you too want to enjoy just one more great, bright, summery meal on this gray, finally-feeling-life-fall kind of a day.
This salad happens to be my favorite thing I ate all year: something I learned at the Enos Farm Harvest Moon Dinner (pictured above) when the kind, inquisitive man next to me rattled off a dozen thoughtful questions about my recipe development, the simplest of which stopped me in my tracks: What is your favorite recipe you’ve developed?
I realized I didn’t have an immediate answer to that. I used to. First, it was the BBQ Butternut Squash & Pulled Pork Pizza I developed for a pizza night at our farm way back in 2016. Then during the pandemic, it transitioned to something comforting I made for us week after week: Soba Noodle Bowl with Pork Meatballs.
But recently, the only recipe I could think of was the meal I had been making on repeat since tomato season began. A simple panzanella of cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, red onions, and sourdough croutons sometimes with fresh herbs tossed in and a nice, creamy ball of burrata on top. It was unequivocally the best meal of my summer. My favorite bite of the whole year.
And when he asked if he could find it on my blog, I was embarrassed to admit that it wasn’t. Somehow I hadn’t realized I should share my favorite recipe of the whole year with you all. I thought it too simple, too similar to another great recipe I shared back in 2020, and that panzanella was too commonplace to deserve a spot on this platform.
That was until I started rattling off the recipe to him, only to discover he had never heard of panzanella, had never heard of burrata, and had never attempted to make sourdough croutons. It was clear this was the exact recipe I should be sharing: simple, minimal ingredients, made only with things abundant in this region. And so here we are.
If you’re also unfamiliar with panzanella and burrata, here’s a quick introduction to both.
Panzanella is a Tuscan dish that combines stale bread (traditionally—I use croutons) with abundant chopped summer vegetables. Tomatoes are nearly always included, and it's dressed with oil and vinegar which softens the bread/croutons. It’s spectacular and I riff on it often.
Burrata is an Italian style of fresh, semisoft cheese where cream and stracciatella are surrounded by fresh mozzarella. The outside looks and tastes just like mozzarella (because it is), but the inside bursts with cream when cut open giving a wonderful variety of textures and also allowing more yummy liquid to be added to the dish and soaked up by the bread and vegetables.
Burrata can be a little challenging to find, but it has become much more well-known in recent years. BelGioioso, out of Green Bay, makes some that is lovely, and is the most widely available, though I have noticed it usually only makes an appearance during the warmer months (May-September).
You can usually find it at all of the Willy Street Co-ops in Madison and most Woodman’s I’ve been to (including Janesville). I’ve even seen it at Target recently. At a regular grocery store, it would be in the “higher end” fancy cheese area near fresh mozzarella. If your store doesn’t carry it, you could leave it out or substitute fresh mozzarella (either the small balls cut in half or the larger balls torn into bite-size pieces).
Now, please enjoy this perfectly balanced bowl of food.
And if you’re out of tomatoes, know that I am too, and picked up two pints of the most beautiful, colorful, Lovefood Farm cherry tomatoes at the Willy Street Co-op this past week to make this dish one last time.
-Lauren
MY FAVORITE PANZANELLA
Serves 4-6
Takes 30 minutes
4 pieces sourdough bread, cut into cubes
5 tablespoons olive oil, divided, plus more to taste
1 teaspoon kosher salt, divided
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, divided
1 cucumber, halved and thinly sliced
1/2 red onion, very thinly sliced
1 quart cherry tomatoes, halved
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
8 ounces burrata
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh herbs (basil, dill, and chives work best) or microgreens, finely chopped
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Add bread cubes to a large baking sheet. Toss with 2 tablespoons olive oil, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper. Bake until lightly browned and dried/crisp, about 10 minutes (but it could be anywhere from 7-15 minutes so watch closely).
In a large bowl, combine cucumber, onion, and tomatoes with remaining salt and pepper. Toss to combine. Add bread cubes and toss again. Drizzle with red wine vinegar and remaining olive oil. Let sit for 10 minutes to allow the bread cubes to get very barely soggy.
Divide the panzanella into bowls and top with burrata. Sprinkle with fresh herbs or microgreens right before serving.