Delish Caponata Appetizer

Here's a little homemade caponata recipe I whipped up for my girl friends. It's fresh, healthy and easy to make too.

Ingredients

1 medium zucchini
1 red bell pepper
10 calmata olives
1 clove garlic
parsley
olive oil
Adobo seasoning (store bought or home made)
sea salt
pepper
Italian bread or baguette


Slice zucchini and peppers in thin strips length wise to grill. Heat up outdoor grill or use a grill pan. If using a grill pan, coat pan with non-stick cooking spray. Lay zucchini and peppers flat on grill or pan. Sprinkle with a little olive oil (do this prior to putting on grill) Adobo seasoning, salt and fresh ground pepper. Grill on both sides until well browned but not too soft in the middle. You want a little crunch and texture left in your veggies.

Remove peppers and zucchini and allow to cool for 2-3 minutes. Once cool rough chop zucchini and peppers and place into a small pan. Remove pits from olives and rough chop. Add olives to pan. Snip in from fresh parsley. Add add additional olive oil, salt and pepper to taste.

For this recipe I prefer to use a small load of whole wheat Italian bread. Slice bread into think slices (bruchetta style) and toast or broil in oven on cookie sheet.

Once the bread is done, warm up the caponata on the stove. You want to warm this up just enough to get the olives warm. Be careful not to over cook it.

I like to arrange each portion on small plates for all my guests. One each plate plate three slices of the toast fanning out. Add to it a nice portion of the caponata. I like to give my guests a small fork so they can choose whether to place the caponata right on the bread, scoop it up or take alternate bites of the bread and veggies. Salute!

Servings: 4

Substitutions: Italian multigrain bread holds more nutritional value. You can also use any Italian style loaf or baguette.

*Created from scratch and out of hunger.