Panzanella Salad

📷 by: Paper & Stitch

This one is for our fellow bread lovers... it's basically a bread salad! With bright pops of color and so easy to whip up for guests.

• 1 whole french baguette
• 5 slices of prosciutto
• 1 pound of watermelon
• 3 mini cucumbers
• 1 handful of baby spinach and arugula combined
• ¼ cup of shaved parmesan cheese
• 2 sprigs of mint
• 1 cup of cherry tomatoes
• ¼ cup red onion
• 1 tbs Pink Himalayan Salt
• ½ tbs of ground black pepper

• ½ cup Herbes de Provence Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 3 tbs Vinagre Viejo de Montilla Vinegar
• 1 tsp of dijon mustard
• 1 tsp of honey
  
• pinch of salt and ground black pepper
• 1 small garlic clove minced

1. Cube one loaf of french bread into 1 inch pieces. Then, toss in olive oil, salt and pepper. Bake on 400 degrees for 8 minutes or until golden brown.
2. While waiting for bread to toast up, you can chop the salad ingredients and make the dressing. Slice or chop mini cucumbers, red onion, mint, arugula, tomatoes, and watermelon spears. You want all the pieces to be roughly the same size, if possible, including the toasted, cubed bread.
3. Set aside. Then, to make the dressing, whisk all the dijon vinaigrette dressing ingredients together and store in the fridge until it's ready to use.
4. Once the bread has toasted up in the oven, toss all of the salad ingredients together in a large bowl or dish. Add dressing and toss again.
5. Then, let everything sit for 30-60 minutes in the fridge before serving. This will help the bread to soak up some of dressing and the rest of the juices.
6. In a separate small bowl mix together the milk and sour cream.
7. Add 1/3 of the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, followed by 1/3 of the milk/sour cream mixture and repeat until it is all combined. To this batter add the mashed bananas and mini chocolate chips and then combine.
8. Pour the batter into your 9×13 baking dish and top with pecans.
9. Bake for 1 hour, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Please check your banana bread after 30 minutes to see how it is baking.