Spring Bruschetta and Salad with Fresh Peas

I'm experiencing my first year in a new climate, and I have to say that plants coming into season months before I'm used to is much more disconcerting than I ever would have thought. I never really noticed how much I expected strawberries and asparagus, for example, to come out in late summer, but when they began lining the shelves here in Northern California in mid April, I was really thrown off. It's too early, I'm thinking, and what have I done to deserve this so soon? What will I look forward to now? It just doesn't seem right.

All that said, tonight's dinner was delicious, regardless of the fact that bites of it conjure up images of summer in New England, and I'm all types of confused and sort of tentatively excited that tomatoes are in season, one of my favorite parts of life.

Bruschetta Ingredients:
-2 small tomatoes (ripe and in season!!)
-2 cloves garlic
-red onion
-fresh mint
-fresh cilantro
-fresh lemon
-olive oil
-pinto beans (rinsed, from a can)
-2 slices whole wheat sourdough bread
-1 slice vegan mozzarella
-vegan butter (organic Earth Balance)

Assembly:
-Chop tomatoes into quarter inch pieces and place in roomy storage container, leave it open as you cut the other ingredients and add them as you go.
-Chop the garlic finely, and then finely chop the onion, cilantro, and mint so that you have about as much of each of these things as you have garlic. Add more or less to taste, of course.
-Toss in a handful or two of beans.
-Squeeze about a quarter of a lemon over the whole thing. Add a pinch of salt and a dash of olive oil.
-Mix thoroughly, cover, and refrigerate while you make salad and bread.

I did each of the two slices of bread differently, so that in case the vegan cheese ruined that one, at least the other one would be good. The cheesy one was surprisingly good, though, and the other one was surprisingly not the favorite. Liked 'em both..anywho...

-Set your oven to broil.
-Place one slice of bread in the toaster and toast, meanwhile lay the slice of cheese over the other piece of bread and place under broiler.
-When the toaster pops up, butter that slice, then check on the broiling cheese toast, it'll take about five minutes.
-Top bothe slices toast with the bruschetta mixture, adding more oil, salt, or herbs as desired.
-Eat with a fork and sharp serated knife, or by picking it up with your hands. MMM!

Serves One, but with leftover bruschetta mixture.

Salad
-2 leaves red leaf lettuce, rinsed and chopped into bite-sized pieces
-bit of red onion, sliced
-3 english snap peas, shelled
-sesame oil
-ume plum vinegar

Assembly:
-You know, put these thing together.

Serves One.

Liberal sprinklings each of sesame oil and ume plum vinegar made this salad SO GOOD. I was experimenting with an alternative to my usual olive oil and balsamic vinegar, which I love but gets boring. I wondered if eschewing the more Italian inspired favorite for the Asian-oriented o+v I went with would be weird with the bruschetta, but the only weirdness was that after taking a bite of the salad I didn't touch the bruschetta again until until my salad was gone. Normally I would keep shifting back and forth, maintaining roughly equal amounts of each food item, but there was no ripping me away from this salad, which had seemed so very simple. mmmm. Also, my plan was to just slice up the peas in their pods, but the first one practically shelled itself when I tried to cut it, so I figured that was the thing to do. Left 'em raw though. Crunchy and sweet.

Overall a pretty refreshing, delectable, summery meal on this first day of May in my new climate. The mint was one of the predominant aftertastes, and who can complain about that? Plus I dare someone to try and get me sick after that does of vitamin-C-rich tomatoes and illness-fighting fresh garlic.

Happy Spring!