Little Round Things Caprese by @MaddieDayAuthor #giveaway

MADDIE DAY here. My little backyard garden is overflowing with gold cherry tomatoes (Sun Gold variety). The basil is having a banner year, too. To celebrate, I'll send one commenter a copy of my newest book, Murder at a Cape Bookstore.

My work is super busy leading up to leaving on Tuesday for the Bouchercon convention in San Diego, and I was going to a potluck meeting of local writers last night. I don't make a practice of buying food to bring to a potluck supper, so what should I make to bring?

When I saw little mozzarella balls at the farm store, I thought a salad of little round things would be fun, pretty, and delicious. Imagine my delight when I learned the little cheese balls are called ciliegine, which means cherry tomatoes! 

My further delight came from realizing that this is just a different form of the classic Caprese salad - slices of full-sized ripe tomato and mozzarella garnished with whole basil leaves in stacks dressed with balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

Rainer Zenz, CC BY-SA 3.0

You obviously can make my version of the salad with un-round chunks of tomatoes. I also decided to add little cubes of homegrown cucumber for some crunch, even though they aren't round. The salad would also be great with feta cheese instead of the mozzarella balls. The most important thing is fresh, ripe ingredients, preferably locally grown.

Little Round Things Caprese

Ingredients

Four cups gold cherry tomatoes

8 ounces ciliegine, drained

About 1/4 cup fresh basil leaves

1 small cucumber, diced (peeled if desired)

3 tablespoons good olive oil

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

Directions

Halve tomatoes and mozzarella balls. 

Hold basil leaves in a stack and sliver with scissors (this method works better than using a knife).

Combine all ingredients and toss. 

Serve with crusty bread for a complete light meal, or enjoy as a side salad with grilled chicken or fish.

Readers: How do you like to eat tomatoes or basil? Are you a fan of conventional Caprese? I'll send one lucky commenter a signed copy of the newest Cozy Capers Book Group mystery, so leave your email address.

🍅🍅🍅

My next books will be "Murderous Mittens" in Christmas Mittens Murder and Murder Uncorked, both featuring my new wine bar manager Cece Barton.

Check out all my writing!

We hope you'll visit Maddie and her Agatha Award-winning alter ego Edith Maxwell on our web site, sign up for our monthly newsletter, visit us on social media, and check our all our books and short stories.

Maddie Day (aka Edith Maxwell) is a talented amateur chef and holds a PhD in Linguistics from Indiana University. An Agatha Award-winning and bestselling author, she is a member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America and also writes award-winning short crime fiction. She lives with her beau and sweet cat Martin north of Boston, where she’s currently working on her next mystery when she isn’t cooking up something delectable in the kitchen

Caprese Flatbread

WE HAVE A WINNER!!

Helen K. suggested our next Secret Ingredient and because she did, Helen has won a $25 gift of chocolate from Fannie May Chocolates (mmm... my favorite!).

But... we here at Mystery Lovers Kitchen were so excited about *another* ingredient, submitted by our good friend and grill-guy, Dave, that we've been inspired to try something new. Stay tuned and we may have some surprises in store in the coming months. Thanks, Dave!

Helen - feel free to contact me at JulieHyzy(at)gmail(dot)com. Otherwise, I'll be in touch soon.

The fun part of this is that Helen suggested so many ingredients that I'm sure she doesn't even know which one it is! We'll reveal our Secret Ingredient during our next Iron Chef week. (Hint - late February.)

Now back to our regularly scheduled blog...

For my birthday a couple of months back, my family and I went out to one of our favorite local restaurants, Cooper's Hawk, which is also a wonderful winery. I love the place - good energy, fabulous service, consistently great food.

They had recently added some new flatbreads to the appetizer menu and we opted to try the Caprese version. Heck, we all love Caprese salads, so why not?

Was it fabulous? Oh, yes. My vegetarian daughter loved it most of all, and we've ordered it again and again...

But what to do between visits? I decided to try to make a Caprese Flatbread at home.

First of all, remember that you can change/adjust/eliminate/add any ingredients to suit your tastes. Feel free to build on this basic recipe. It's fun.

CAPRESE FLATBREAD

1 pkg frozen bread dough. (These usually come in packs of three. I defrost

one at a time, and then cut the loaf in thirds. One-third of a loaf makes a good-sized flatbread)

Fresh tomatoes, sliced

Fresh Mozzarella, sliced

Fresh basil leaves, chopped

Fresh garlic cloves, crushed and minced

Purple onion, sliced in to super-slim half-rounds

Olive oil

Parmesan cheese

Italian salad dressing

Balsamic vinegar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Knead, then roll out the 1/3 chunk of defrosted frozen bread dough. The last photo is of two 1/3 chunks, rolled out. The rolling can get a little bit frustrating because the dough really, really wants to stay in chunk form. But it eventually behaves. I intended to make nice, straight rectangles -- I wanted them to look just like the ones at Coopers Hawk -- as you can see, the shapes turned out more like paramecium =) I could have cut off the edges, but why? This was for my family and the more flatbread, the better.

Spray a cookie sheet/jelly roll pan with non-stick cooking spray and transfer the rolled-out dough onto the sheet. Combine olive oil (about 2 - 3 TBSP) with minced garlic. Brush the dough with it. Bake until the flattened bread begins to brown. Bubbles may form during baking, and you can just pop them with the sharp end of a knife or a fork. My bread took about 20 minutes to brown, but I would suggest you leave it in just a little bit longer.

Once it's nicely browned, bring it topside on your stove, and decide if you think it needs more olive oil/garlic. We love garlic, so we usually add a bit more. Add sliced mozzarella, tomatoes, onions and top with chopped basil leaves. Once it's all arranged and looks pretty, drizzle a little Italian salad dressing and balsamic vinegar. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.

Return the flatbread to the oven and bake until edges start to crisp. In these photos, I didn't leave them in quite long enough and the edges are still a little

soft. They tasted great, but we discovered that we prefer them just a little bit more crispy.

As I mentioned, you can add any ingredients you prefer. Other cheeses, other herbs. I bet this would be fabulous with roasted peppers. Hope you have fun eggsperimenting!

(Sorry, couldn't resist throwing in a plug for Eggsecutive Orders! LOL)

Enjoy,

Julie

www.juliehyzy.com