Is there anything more wonderful than strawberry season?
If you’re like me, when the crops come in at local farms, the race is on to eat and preserve as many of these sweet and luscious berries as possible in the coming weeks. Ripened under sunshine and picked at the peak of freshness, local berries are a far cry from the mass-produced strawberries you find throughout the year in plastic clamshell containers at grocery stores.
Because they’re sweet, strawberries lend themselves toward dessert. Shortcake is a given, along with strawberry crisp, strawberry pie and strawberry freezer jam.
In this recipe, the berries stand in for tomatoes in a sweet and tart bruschetta appetizer.
Most bruschetta is made with toasted bread, but I like to fry the ciabatta slices in a little olive oil so they’re super-crispy. You can use either fresh ricotta or shredded fresh mozzarella as the base and a tangy balsamic glaze sweetened with honey drizzled on top.