When we were on vacation in Colorado, one of our friends made this delicious appetizer. The other name for it is Insalata Caprese, and it is a classic dish from the Italian region of Campania (thanks Wikipedia). We loved it and it is a very easy, yet elegant dish to serve. Here is a paraphrased recipe:
Ingredients:
Fresh mozzarella
Tomatoes (I used grape tomatoes. You can also use cherry tomatoes, or sliced tomatoes)
Fresh basil
Olive oil
Balsamic vinegar
Put the mozzarella and the tomatoes in a serving dish. Cut the basil up (I stacked the leaves, rolled them up, and then cut them into slivers), and sprinkle the basil on top of the mozzarella and tomatoes. Drizzle olive oil and balsamic vinegar on top. I mixed it all up at this point to evenly disperse the oil and vinegar. Viola! You are done.
I brought this to an Italian themed potluck tonight and people raved. And it only took me about 5-10 minutes to make this! We served it with slices of French baguette but you could eat this by itself too. You can also thread them onto toothpicks, but that takes too much work in my opinion. This is a great, easy dish you can quickly throw together for a party, and people think you are a fabulous cook because of it.
