Fancy Toast
Posted on May 28, 2021 Posted by Athena Scalzi 14 Comments
If there’s one thing I love, it’s fancy toast. Or rather, I love any food that is simple that you can elevate to make into something bougie (or boujee). Because I’m a bougie bitch.
In today’s segment of “making something that actually turned out right” we have Half Baked Harvest’s “Whipped Ricotta Toast with Marinated Tomatoes and Lemon Thyme Honey”. As you may remember, Half Baked Harvest is like my favorite food blogger, so I was really excited to make this fancy toast.
Toast is such an underrated food 🤩 pic.twitter.com/VvPLz99kpY
— Athena Scalzi ⭐️ (@AScalzi98) May 28, 2021
Though it looks really nice, it was actually super easy! I wouldn’t say the ingredients list is extraordinarily long or anything, but at first glance it can kind of look like a lot. Good news is that most of it is easy stuff like olive oil, garlic, basil, the usual suspects. There’s nothing in this recipe that’s really odd or that you have to search super hard for in the grocery store, which I really appreciate about it.
Basically all you have to do is throw the tomatoes, oil, garlic, and herbs in a bowl, then whip the ricotta (which takes like one minute in a food processor or blender), toast the bread in a skillet, and voila! The recipe says to use olive oil to toast the bread, but I used butter, because nothing is better than bread and butter.
Another thing I changed about the recipe is for the toast for the tomato mixture, I used a loaf of Portuguese corn bread (not like Jiffy cornbread).
The recipe also says that you can put berries on the toast alongside the cherry tomato mixture, but I thought that sounded… not good. So I just made a completely separate toast for the berries! And you know what I think goes better with berries than ricotta? Mascarpone!
So, the berry toast consisted of mascarpone, strawberries from my garden (my garden being basically just a strawberry patch because it will take over any given space it can), raspberries, blueberries, and the honey mixture from the original recipe! I did use sourdough for the berry toast, though.
Overall, both toasts were very easy to whip up, and both were extremely delicious! I highly recommend this recipe, and also recommend experimenting with it like I did, because you can’t really go wrong with creamy cheeses and fresh produce on toast.
If you try out this recipe, let me know how it goes and if you choose to do savory, (the tomatoes) sweet (the berries), or combine the two like the original recipe suggested! What else should I put atop my fancy toast? Let me know in the comments, and have a great day!
-AMS
You write so well, a chip off the middle-aged block with your own clear voice. Always a treat to read your posts says this 70-year old. The toast is way too much trouble for an old guy, but I can taste it while sitting here smoking my cigar. When do I show up? Make sure Prince Charles gets a taste.
Uncooked salsa, aka ‘salsa fresca’. You can go ‘classic’ or creative.
(Admitted salsa junkie here, I put it on lots of things.)
Being a Californian, I always vote for avocado toast.
Slightly off topic but in the marscapone/ricotta/berry breadish topping realm . . .
When we make Norwegian waffles, we top it with macerated strawberries and sour cream
I’ve been on a breakfast kick with what you might describe as ‘bougie’ mushrooms. Take your favorites, sautee them with a splash of basalmic vinegar, then at the end a splash of heavy cream. A mound of that over toast is a perfect breakfast!
Thank you for using voila instead of viola. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Fancy toast is wonderful. It is lower-grade fancy, but one of my favorites used to be a slice of Great Harvest sourdough, spread with butter, topped with brown sugar, and put in the toaster oven. Tangy, buttery, caramel-y goodness.
I also used to be “use butter everywhere” (or alternatively “use bacon grease; if you can’t, then use butter”) but have come around to some things being legitimately complemented better by other, objectively lesser, fats. Sigh. I do not know if this would be one of those cases, though.
May your fancy toast experiments prosper!
They both sound delicious, and hooray for your experiments!
These two well-liked warm lunch toast recipes favored in the Netherlands are very rich, but ideal for occasional cold days.
A French croque-monsieur, a fancy ham-and-cheese toastie with bechamel sauce: https://ed-chef.com/2020/09/28/croque-monsieur-original-authentic-french-sandwich-recipe/
Eat it with knife and fork.
There are a few variations as well with their own names, as Wikipedia enumerates: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croque_monsieur
The more usual simple Dutch (eat with your hands) tosti version leaves out the sauce and is much drier, unless you add tomato, or pineapple to make it a ‘tosti Hawaii’ – I really recommend the luxurious French version if you want to treat yourself.
An ‘uitsmijter’ (pronounced out-smiter, translates literally to ‘a bouncer’) is a variation on fried eggs that is generally eaten on 2 slices of untoasted but tasty bread that can soak up the juices.
Fry two slices of ham, add two eggs to the pan on top of the ham (your choice – if you want runny yolk, then leave the yolks whole; but usually I break them so the eggs cook evenly), then add two slices of (Gouda) cheese on top to half-melt.
Slide the whole fried layered contents of the pan onto two slices of whatever tasty bread you prefer, and eat with knife and fork.
Variations: add sliced tomatoes on the buttered bread before adding the ham-eggs-cheese layer; or add some pickles on top, or some parsley, to cut the fattiness.
If you like your food salty you can sprinkle a little salt on the eggs, but as the ham and cheese both already contain salt it is not really necessary.
If you like runny yolks, you can exchange the layers for ham-cheese-eggs on top.
Here’s a recipe in Dutch, maybe Google translate can help with that.
https://www.ah.nl/allerhande/recept/R-R260490/boerenuitsmijter
When I’m being careful of my calories, I only use 1 egg and 1 slice of cheese, no ham, spread out in the pan so they’ll cover both slices of unbuttered bread. It still tastes better than 1 slice of bread and egg, 1 one slice of bread and cheese, and it’s a warm lunch, but not nearly so decadent as the full uitsmijter.
And one lighter favorite for hot days, which I usually make on whole wheat tortillas instead of toast (though I think it would work on toast as well, except then you’ld need to eat it with knife and fork instead of your hands).
Spread the tortilla with a thin layer of cream cheese or hummus (or avocado mashed to a spread if you’ve got neither in the house). Add rucola salad leaves, some slices of avocado, some pomegranate kernels, and some little chunks of fresh goat cheese, and maybe some halved sweet cherry tomatoes (if you don’t have pomegranate kernels, do add these instead). Roll up and eat.
Alternative ingredients: iceberg lettuce, strips of smoked chicken breast, sweet corn kernels and halved cherry tomatoes (goes best with the cream cheese base); or strips of smoked salmon instead of the chicken. Blueberries can work as a substitution for the cherry tomatoes.
The ‘fanciest’ toast I’ve made for myself, creamy peanut butter, cheese and fruit (usually bananas or strawberries).
I saw Fancy Toast open for Strawberry Alarm Clock in ’69.
Heckuva show.
I’m going to keep this in mind for when strawberry season starts in a few weeks.
Have you been to the Chocolate-Covered Katie blog? I’m not vegan, but the recipes on her site are DELICIOUS! You can use regular milk instead of almond milk or whatever, I just hate cow’s milk, lol. Also, I didn’t know I needed Buffalo Cauliflower in my life, but I’m so glad it’s there!
Personally, I like a thick slice of toasted French or Italian bread slathered in herbed garlic butter and topped with diced avocados and sliced sweet tomatos seasoned with Italian spices.
My other favorite is onion bread toasted and slathered in that same herbed garlic butter then topped with Marinated carne Asada and caramelized onions.
In case it wasn’t clear, I’m firmly on team savory.
Lovely toasts. If you think strawberry plants are invasive, try a raspberry/blackberry vine patch. Neglect to take the machete out and hack them back into boundaries for a season and hoo boy! They’ll still produce great berries, but you’ll only be able to reach the outside ones.