Farm Share Panzanella Salad

During the summer my husband and I participate in the Newton Community Farm CSA Farm Share program. During the season, my husband goes to the farm and fills bags with the seasonal produce of the week, a mix of herbs and vegetables. Each week is a little different, sometimes we will get the same thing for a few weeks or sometimes just once. Recently we have been getting tomatoes, zucchini and garlic, so when I was at a friends for dinner and she used zucchini in a new way I was pumped!

She uses Blue Apron and had made a Panzanella Salad with zucchini, olives, peas and bread. It was delicious! I kept going back for more and was dreaming about it the next day. So obviously, I had to take a stab at making my own version. She had explained her process and I did a little research to see what other ingredients people include.

I knew the bread was key! I had some bread in the freezer. I often freeze bread when I buy it, so it doesn't go bad. I chopped it up/broke up the bread into bit sized pieces and added in some chopped from my farm share. I put these both in a pan along with salt and pepper and broiled on low for 4-6 minutes, flipping halfway and cooking until they had a nice golden brown color. Once complete I left them in a bowl.

One recipe I read about had used tomatoes and since I had a full carton of them from the farm share I decided to start with those for the veggies.

I do not own a grill (unfortunately we do not have our own outdoor space-dream for the next place I live) but I have this great cast iron skillet. While heating the pan, I chopped up the tomatoes and added a little bit of grape seed oil. After a few minutes I flipped them over. Tomatoes cook fast, so I recommend watching them closely. Once both sides were cooked, I added them to the bowl with the bread.

I knew I wanted to use the zucchini I had from my farm share. Along with the zucchini we also got summer squash in the farm share. In my mind, they are almost the same vegetable, they can be cooked the same and go well together. So i chopped those up into similar sized pieces and threw them on the skillet to "grilled" both sides.

Once the veggies were cooked I added them to the bowl with the other ingredients. I added some mayonnaise and lemon juice over the bread, tomatoes, zucchini and squash, then put them in the fridge to sit. I was hungry and impatient, so after 10 minutes I took the salad out (it should probably have sat more like 20 minutes). I chopped up some walnuts and olives and added those into the mix. (p.s. keeping walnuts in the freezer keeps them fresh) Then platted in a bowl to enjoy!