A couple of months ago I was introduced to
Smitten Kitchen, a simply delightful foodie blog that I now check at least once per week for her newest recipe including her wonderful photography. A few weeks ago, she featured a recipe for
Scalloped Tomatoes with Croutons that I knew I wanted to make as soon as possible. Luckily, my parents came over the dinner the weekend after I first saw the recipe and it was the perfect opportunity to try it out.
Oh.my.goodness.
This recipe doesn't disappoint. The picture above is what it looked like prior to baking. It looked so wonderful after baking and I was so anxious to try it that I didn't get a picture of it before we ate. Because I have a meat-eating husband, I paired this with another Smitten Kitchen recipe - Baked Chicken Meatballs. The meatballs were good, but I would almost venture to say that I would prefer to eat them outside of the traditional spaghetti and meatballs method. The chicken and bacon combination warrants an opportunity to enjoy the flavor of the meatballs instead of drowning them in sauce and burying them in pasta.
But back to the
Scalloped Tomatoes with Croutons - the whole point of this post. I have a couple of recommendations when making this dish. My tomatoes were fantastic, juicy tomatoes, but the dish suffered a bit because they were a little too juicy. I even reduced some of the juice when making the dish and the end result was more of a stew than a casserole consistency. Additionally, the bread I used was far to airy. This dish really needs bread that is quite dense and won't immediately soak up all kinds of juice.
Regardless of the unintended texture, the flavor in this dish is simply divine. I really can't imagine anyone who likes tomatoes not falling in love with the rich tomato taste present in every single bite.
And Smitten's recommendation to try it leftover (if you manage to have any leftover) with a poached egg on top moves this dish from fantastic to out-of-this-world! I might even consider making this for brunch sometime.
