Bread Salad

The other day while looking over the last of the season's tomatoes, my mind went back to this past summer and to the recipe that sustained me, that let me enjoy the offerings of the season while helping me improve my health and drop a lot of unwanted pounds.

In a recent blog, I mentioned admiration for generations past for taking something that many of us will now throw away (stale bread) and do something remarkable with it. I mean really, Americans pay good money every November for bags or boxes of stale bread (white or corn) with which to stuff their turkeys.

My biggest tip on making bread salad is to use a dry, crumbly type of bread. This will soak up the juices making a thick dressing which adds to the wonderful texture of this salad. The amounts I am going to give are not exact as this is something that I never measure.

Bread Salad

1 pound string beans, cleaned, cut into two-inch pieces, cooked and cooled

1 large red, yellow or orange bell pepper, seeded, deveined and diced

1 cup sweet red onion, diced

1 stalk celery, diced

1 cucumber, peeled, halved, scooped of its seeds and diced

2 large ripe tomatoes, cut into chunks

1 can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed

1 can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

3 or 4 slices of bread dried to a crumbly stage

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/3 cup red wine vinegar

Salt and pepper to taste

1 can good quality tuna (preferably imported from Italy) packed in olive oil

Combine vegetables and beans and mix well.

Crumble bread into salad and mix.

Whisk oil and vinegar together, add and mix

Season with salt and pepper, add tuna and mix to combine.