Roasted Tomatoes and Pesto Croutons

You would expect Nancy Silverton, of the La Brea Bakery, to know what to do with day-old bread. And the pesto croutons that accompany the Roasted Tomato and Red Pepper Soup I assembled today were the best part. To make them, you're supposed to tear, not cut, 1-inch pieces from the center, not the crust, of a round loaf of sourdough, then toss them in olive oil and bake for 30 minutes in a 350 degree oven (shaking them occasionally). Then you drizzle a mixture of equal parts pesto and olive oil over them and toss. August got to them before lunch today and I couldn't keep him out of the bowl. I think I undercooked them, so they had all these crispy little edges but were still kind of soft in the center, and the pesto flavor was refreshing, not that salty, fake flavor that boxed croutons often have.

Not to say the other component of the recipe, roasted tomatoes, weren't good; they just didn't make it into the soup. You toss halved grape tomatoes with olive oil, a tiny pinch of sugar and some salt then broil them for about 7 minutes. The sweet, intense little bites of tomato were good on our tacos of chicken thighs with yucatan spices, in our pasta salad with chickpeas and vinaigrette, and in our cheese quesadillas.

Frankly, the red pepper soup (a carton) I bought was pretty sweet, and I can't imagine the sweet, sweet tomatoes offering the foil the soup needed. The pesto was a nice contrast; maybe some swirled in would be good.

The cookbook this comes from, A Twist of the Wrist, makes me giddy, though. Of course, the success of all these recipes, which rely on opening cans, jars, boxes and bottles, depend on the quality of the purchased prepackaged ingredients. That's why she offers so many brand suggestions throughout the book. What she's doing really reminds me of some of the simplest tapas, which involve some good-quality ingredient simply drizzled with oil or fried up and skewered.