A Night in Italy...sort of

Last night I had a little dinner party of sorts. I invited 12 people and 10 came so that was good. I tried to a do a little theme dinner so I went with Italian. We had bruschetta as an appetizer, lasagna as the main course (with green beans on the side) and chocolate cake as dessert. I like to think chocolate is the international dessert. My favorite part was the cake but the bruschetta got rave reviews so I thought I'd pass on the recipe. I'll warn you that I used the entire baguette and probabably had 20-25 slices of bread and still had left over mix.

6 roma tomatoes
1/2 sun-dried tomatoes, packed in oil
3 cloves minced garlic
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup fresh basil
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 French baguette
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

In a large bowl combine the roma tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, vinegar, basil, salt, and pepper. Allow the mixture to sit for 10 minutes

Cut the baguette into 3/4 inch slices. On a baking sheet arrange the baguette slices in a single layer. It says you're supposed to broil for 1-2 minutes but I skipped that.

Divide the tomatoe mixture evenly over the baguette slices. Tope the slices with mozzarella cheese.

Broil for 5 minutes or until cheese is melted. Enjoy!!

We also managed to get through almost 7 bottles of wine which is pretty impressive considering 2 of the 10 people didn't even drink wine. All in all, the evening was quite enjoyable. The company was great and the stories were entertaining as always!