Tomato Cheese Toast

I love this time of year--tomatoes are finally coming into season! My sweet 100 plant is heavy with fruit and already I'm starting to enjoy the harvest. Because they're like eating candy, the fruit often doesn't make it into the house; while hand watering I heedlessly nibble.

But with a little self control I can collect enough to make one of my favorite breakfasts: sourdough toasted topped with olive oil, grated parmesan romano, and tomatoes. On a weekend morning, I'll also include a fried egg.

A couple of weeks ago Justin Park of Baja Olive stopped by with a half dozen samples of oil for me to try. So, what better way to start than with my toast?

I slathered a slice of cracked wheat sourdough from Trader Joe's (one of my favorites) with Baja Olive's garlic-flavored oil, which is made by crushing the garlic cloves with the olives during processing. Then I sprinkled the bread with the grated cheese and toasted it in my toaster oven for close to five minutes (on a dark toast setting).

In the meantime I halved about a dozen cherry tomatoes. This week I needed to buy a basket since most of my tomatoes are still ripenening. These are organic heirlooms. But I also included several from my garden.

When the first toasting was done, I placed the tomatoes on the bread, sliced side up. Then I sprinkled the tomatoes with sea salt and red chile flakes before covering them up with more grated cheese. Back into the toaster oven it went for another five minutes.

In the meantime I fried up an egg with a splash of the unflavored Baja Olive oil until the white was set but the yolk nice and runny.

I topped the toast with the egg and blissed out on breakfast with a frothy cup of cappuccino. The toast was crisp and lightly flavored with garlic and olive, which complemented the sweet and salty combination of roasted tomatoes and cheese. And there's little a fresh runny egg can't improve with both that unctuous texture and silky flavor. My weekend was off to a great start!

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