Bruschetta for One

Bean and Tuna Bruschetta for one.

This came about when I didn't feel like cooking dinner and had just bought a delicious loaf of French bread from our local bakery.  I had a can of tuna and a can of cannellini beans and my little tomatoes that I love (more on that in a minute).  I sauteed a little onion in some olive oil and then removed the onion bits from the pan but left the oil.  Put a portion of the beans in the pan and moved them around a little thinking "those will just all roll off the toast" and finally deciding to mash them up some with a fork.  Then left them to stay warm while I rubbed some cut garlic on my slice of bread and toasted it while I snitzled up a couple of basil leaves.  Layered some of the beans on my toast with a littlel drizzle of olive oil, broke up some tuna and put that next, then the little tomatoes which I had quartered, and finally the fresh basil. Toasted another slice and did the same again and was plenty full when I finished.  It was very, very yummy!  Of course the very, very good bread certainly helped.

NOTE:   If you're new to cooking for one and having trouble with waste (I did when I first started), don't worry about the fact that you have to open a whole can of beans and a whole can of tuna.  Just make sure you store them in a plastic container with a snug lid - don't leave them in the can.  I'll probably use my left over "stuff" for a pasta that I like to make that uses essentially the same ingredients (I may have posted a recipe for it) - the beans, the tuna, I add some black olives (I like those shriveled up, cured in oil ones) maybe a few capers, a splash of white wine and some pasta cooking water if it needs to be soupier.  It's not really a sauce actually - it shouldn't be real soupy.  Or, shoot, you could just keep having bruschetta! :)

Now about tomatoes...I have discovered and love these Cherub tomatoes.  They really have a lot of tomato flavor.  Come summer I will probably try to find some local tasty ones (although they're becoming harder to find) but meanwhile I love these.  There is another cherry type tomato from the same company called Glorys and I tried them once when I couldn't get the Cherubs and they didn't have that same old-fashioned acidic flavor that I think tomatoes should have.  I plan to maybe try making a simple marinara sauce from scratch, using these and see how that goes.

Bon Appetit!