Ripe tomatoes are so easy to be made into simple yet delicious soup. I followed the recipe in my cookbook of Party Food and Appertizers. In fact the recipe calls for sun-dried tomato paste so that the soup has intense flavor. However, I didn’t have that kind of tomato paste so I went ahead using normal tomato paste. The soup was still tasty though I wondered how the authentic taste would be like.
We can choose to cook with either chicken stock or vegetable stock, and I picked vegetable stock to get a real fresh and vegetarian soup. I made the toasted cheese croûte with baguette slices and grated Parmesan cheese.
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My attempt to make baguette finally came to a good result that satisfied me. I made these baguette under the circumstance of lacking some tools. I didn’t have a pastry knife to score the bread and I used a razor blade to score my baguettes. I didn’t have a spraying tool to spray water over the bread during the first baking procedure, so I used a brush to spread water over the bread surface.
Kneading the dough by hands, withstanding a small convention oven that drops temperature each time I opened the door and each time I re-positioned the tray, I felt even happier that my baguettes came out similar to – at least to some degree – ones at bakeries. The crust was hard and sounded beautifully when I broke the bread into halves. I so loved having baguette with soup for dinner.
This soup is just great to enjoy with bread slices. Let’s imagine that you are dipping a crispy bread slice into a warm thick soup with beautiful orange color and creamy texture, then gradually taking a first bite, feeling the first impression coming from the good smell, you’ll appreciate a good treat of the day.
It is very easy to cook this soup, it matters only that you gather all the necessary ingredients. Cooking time is just within 30 minutes and you will have a pleasant soup for either breakfast, lunch or dinner, but I prefer having it for dinner with the freshly baked bread which I spent the whole afternoon to make it.
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Recently, if you notice, I’ve made several dishes from bread slices, sometimes called toast or bruschetta. A local magazine in Vietnam ordered me to make some foods suitable for breakfast. Thinking that bread always makes fast and yummy breakfast, sometimes very healthy breakfast too, I decided to make some foods with bread. By coincidence I’ve been practising making baguette (all by hands and human’s strength, though not mine! I asked for my fiance’s help to knead the dough or the dough is too heavy for me and I don’t have a strong mixer), so I often have day-old baguette left in my pantry.
However, the magazine used them as items for Finger Food category and they asked me to make other foods to fill up the breakfast category 
Anyway, I’m glad that in one issue, I had 8 different dishes featured and introduced to readers.
We love these mushroom bruschetta as mushrooms were very fresh and tasty served on crispy baguette slices. The combination of bacon and mushroom was just great.
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These are the baguette slices we couldn’t finish on the day we baked the baguette, so I decided to make some toasts to make them less boring and more palatable for breakfast.
Having some pepperonis left in the fridge which I bought to make pizza, I thought why not making some toasts with these pepperoni slices just like making pizza. I also topped the toasts with a few fresh rosemary leaves (I was very eager at using rosemary as this was the first time I could buy fresh rosemary).
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A light breakfast sometimes keeps us awake the whole morning. When I stay up late the previous night and still get up at the usual hour, I only feel like having a light breakfast, as heavy breakfast makes me more sleepy.
This fresh tomato and basil on toast is a good choice in such mornings. The freshness and juiciness of the tomatoes bring about a very refreshing feeling. It was the first time I got fresh basil to use. Fresh basil can be bought at large supermarket but the price is often very high for just a few stalk or leaves. But this time I could get a pack for quite reasonable price. I was so eager to try my first time bought fresh basil in actual green leaves.
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I think this is too much for a weekend breakfast. Without a toaster, I toasted the left-over white bread over direct flame, then fried two eggs for my fiance and me.
I bought a pack of bratwurst several days ago (which was on promotion and sold at attractive price). This was the first time my fiance knew how bratwurst tasted like, though this was only one kind of many varieties of bratwursts.
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This is our breakfast for a weekend morning. I do not often buy "fresh" sausages since they are not so cheap. Normally we only have frozen sausages at barbecue gathering with friends, though knowing that they are almost tasteless and unhealthy, sausages should always be included as a "norm" here.
My fiance has never tasted a "real" fresh sausage. I used to have chance to eat real German bratwurst at Oktoberfest and Christmas during my exchange program there, so I knew how great the taste was like. So when shopping at the supermarket this weekend, noticing that the sausages were offered at good price, I decided to treat him a special brunch with this bread and sausage.
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