Simple elegant snacks

Enjoying our new Florida home has instilled within me a lot of new food ideas. Especially for both breakfast and snack time.

This morning, I made for Tom a brunch style array of platters with fresh fruit, a warm french stick with lots of cherry tomatoes, soften goat cheese, seasoned olive oil, baby spinach, basil, jams and a little butter. A pot of fresh brewed coffee on the bistro table made it all feel very special.

Toms favorite thing was to spread the softened goat cheese on a slice of warm bread, top with tomatoes, a touch of olive oil and small bits of basil.

It was so good!

Of course, if you want to do something like this for the afternoons, served with a glass of wine, I would suggest toasting pine nuts or walnuts to add to the bread, along with having a touch of balsamic vinegar to go with the olive oil.

Maybe serve as well a bowl of olives and slices of prosciutto on the side.

This kind of spread is wonderful and so refreshing and very easy to throw together. No need to plan ahead - simply assemble anything you have on hand. Jar sliced red peppers is good as is Italian vegetables in brine.

*Quick Tip - I like to keep a French stick (cut in half) in the freezer. Take out of the freezer 15 minutes ahead of serving.

Place the frozen bread stick in a 250 degree oven, on one of the racks, for approx 10-12 minutes. Slice just before serving.

ENJOY!