Grilled Vegetable and Stale Bread Tuna Salad

This Sunday at the Fairmount Neighborhood Farmers Market, you'll find pastured meats and eggs from Fair Valley Farm and Fog Hollow Farm, cut flowers from Tiger Lily Art Company, and fresh produce from Camas Swale Farm, including torpedo onions, summer squash, cherry tomatoes, and radicchio for grilling.

We grilled a large platter of vegetables for the 4th of July, to go along with our Fair Valley Farm beef burgers. My philosophy is that you can not have enough leftover grilled vegetables, which can be reincarnated in many guises such as on pizza or in grain salad.

When assessing the leftover situation for packing lunch this morning, I realized that we still had some grilled vegetables and a quarter of a stale baguette. In my family I am famous for my aversion to soggy sandwiches and I generally avoid packing any ladened bread that will have to sit from morning until noon. These ingredients, however, inspired me to throw together a lunch in which the intension was to hydrate the bread into an edible state by lunchtime. 

On top of cubed stale baguette I layer a can of tuna in olive oil and then the grilled vegetables with some balsamic vinegar and basil. By lunchtime the flavors had melded, the bread was softened but not soggy, and the whole mixture made a delicious meal mounded on top of fresh, crunchy lettuce leaves.

Grilled Vegetable and Stale Bread Tuna Salad

recipe for two servings

~8 slices stale baguette
~two cups of grilled vegetables such as zucchini, eggplant, peppers, onions, corn, mushrooms, and radicchio
1 can good tuna in olive oil
~1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
~8 basil leaves
~12 lettuce leaves, washed

1. Chop the baguette slices into bite size pieces and layer on the bottom of a serving bowl or transportable lunch container.

2. Flake the tuna and layer it over the bread pieces, drizzling over the olive oil.

3. Cut the grilled vegetables into bite size pieces and layer over the bread and tuna. Drizzle with a little balsamic vinegar. Sprinkle with some torn basil leaves.

4. Allow the salad to marinate for several hours at room temperature so that the bread absorbs the dressing and flavors. To serve, tear the lettuce leaves and distribute over two plates. Toss the bread salad to mix and distribute it over the lettuce on the two plates. Enjoy.