Two Italian Salads

Summer's here, and here are two classic Italian salads to go with it.

Panzanella

Basically a salad to use up dried up bread.

Ingredients

2 cups dried bread (cubed)
1 lb tomatoes (peeled, cored, cubed)
1 small red onion (thinly sliced)
1/2 English cucumber (peeled, cubed)
2 ribs celery hearts (cubed)
1/2 cup pitted green olives (sliced in half lengthwise each)

1/2 cup basil (torn loosely)
2 cloves garlic (minced)
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
3 tbsp olive oil

fine sea salt
black pepper

Recipe

Please read this post on salt first. Recipe should be pretty obvious.

Insalata di rucola, pignoli e parmi

Ingredients

1/2 cup pine nuts (toasted lightly)
arugula leaves

parmigiano-reggiano (read below)

1 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

fine sea salt
black pepper

Recipe

The only trick here (besides toasting the pine nuts) is to use a vegetable peeler to shave paper-thin slices of the parm.