Apparently Mother Nature does not like bruschetta.

In the course of 15 minutes, yesterday night changed from a fairly sunny paradise to a Hollywood-action-flick worthy hellhole.  Most of you out-of-towners probably heard about the freak weather in the form of news reports about a little incident that happened at Bluesfest.

Anyways, the storm that wreaked havoc to the Bluesfest stage was the same one that kindly decided to knock the power out on my small, Old Ottawa South street block.  This put a kink in my evening plans. All day long I had been planning to make two types of bruschetta, using this amazing Parisian baguette I bought earlier in the day at Art-is-in Bakery (post to come in a few days).

I arrived home from a photo shoot with Anne from Hello Ottawa, only to find my kitchen engulfed in darkness.  I could have cried.  My bread was at its optimum freshness and needed to be used.

Then I made a decision: no man, beast or freak power outage was going to keep me from my bruschetta.

The oven was still warm from when my roommate and her boyfriend cooked a huge pot roast, so I decided to heat my bread in there.  It wasn’t toasted, but I figured the baguette was chewy and crusty enough already that it would suffice.

After about 10 minutes in the oven I took it out and, by the glow of a small tea light, spread pesto and goat cheese over my barely-visible pieces of baguette.  Thank heavens my strawberries were pre-cut, otherwise it’s highly likely I would have lost a digit.  I tossed the strawberries with a bit of balsamic vinegar and carefully added them on top of the goat cheese.

Taking the bruschetta outside into the 8:30 p.m. light, I could finally see the fruits of my labour.  Yes, the end product looked a little messy, but it was completely delicious.  I ate six pieces.  In minutes.  It was that good.

Our power just went back on a few hours ago.  To celebrate, I made my second type of bruschetta.  My life = officially made.

PS: since my power had been off for 12+ hours this morning when I left for work, I packed up all my cheese and frozen meat and biked them into the office to put in the fridge. Take that unholy lack-of-refrigeration diseases!
PPS: Even though I saw the original recipe that inspired this bruschetta on Tastespotting, it was also partially inspired by this amazing flatbread I had at the Ottawa restaurant Mambo the other week when I reviewed their patio scene for Local Tourist Ottawa.
PPPS: My new camera is leading to me taking even more pictures than before. I’m averaging about 50 per meal.  This is bad news.

Recipe: Strawberry, goat cheese and pesto bruschetta
Adapted from Yummy Mummy Kitchen
– 1/4 baguette, sliced diagonally and “warmed” in the oven (or you can actually toast it if, you know, you have power)
– 3 tbsp pesto
– 2 oz goat cheese
– 1/2 cup strawberries, diced
– 1/2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

In a small bowl, toss strawberries with balsamic vinegar.  Set aside.

Spread an equal amount of pesto onto the top of each slice of baguette.  Crumble the goat cheese on top.  Carefully arrange your balsamic-bathed strawberries on top of the goat cheese.  Serve immediately.

Makes 1 (okay, technically 2 servings since there’s 6 pieces…) serving