Cornbread Panzanella for Dinner + Flowers

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This is a great meal for when you don’t really know what you feel like or what you want for dinner. It has everything — bread, cheese, veggies, and basil. If you wanted to go crazy, I bet you could even add some cooked, cubed chicken. jwa and I enjoyed it quite a bit. The slightly sweet cornbread really works with the tomatoes, cheese (what doesn’t work with cheese?) and lemony olive oil.

I just used a box of cornbread mix (Trader Joe’s brand), baked that (I added a little garlic, sautéed leeks and fresh herbs to the mix) and then let it cool before cubing it and drying the cubes of bread out a little in a 290 degree oven. That worked just great.

Cornbread Panzanella Salad
This recipe is based on one by Giada De Laurentiis.
4 cups cornbread, cut into cubes
1 cup halved cherry tomatoes
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup fontina cheese, cubed
1/2 hothouse cucumber, cubed
1/4 cup red onion, diced
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil leaves
2/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 lemon, zested and juice
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
pinch red pepper flakes

basil

Combine the cornbread, garlic, cheese, cucumber, onion, basil and cherry tomatoes in a large bowl. Toss gently.

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Mix together the zest, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, pepper, and pepper flakes. Toss with the veggies and bread in the same large bowl.

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Now, just sit down and eat!

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Wedding Flowers

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I kind of tested out making a hand-tied bouquet with some $3.99 a bunch irises. For the wedding, I’m going to use burgandy calla lilies (and possibly a few fiddlehead fern thingies), but I figured the small irises would be a good practice flower.

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I think it’ll work. I’ve decided to go the diy-route with Fiftyflowers and for our size wedding and flower needs, I am convinced this is a great choice. I gathered the flowers in bunches of three (10 flowers each bunch) and secured with floral wire.

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Then, I wrapped everything together with more wire and then wrapped the big bunch in chocolate-colored satin ribbon.

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4 Replies to “Cornbread Panzanella for Dinner + Flowers”

  1. When is the wedding day? this is a great idea for the flowers~how many flowers will you be needing? How big is the wedding? How are you finding time to post with all this other stuff going on in your life? Amazing~ the dish looks vey soothing and so Italian~love it!

  2. Jann:
    May 4, 2008. I’m not quite sure how many — probably 40-50 calla lilies and then whatever tulips we can pick up locally. Small wedding — hooray! And thanks 🙂
    The bread salad was really, really good. We will definitely be having it again!

  3. Gosh I’m so bad at math– to leave a comment you have to do math– I just used my fingers. Anyway, we loved this stuff!! When my husband came home from work yesterday night, he said that he’d been dreaming of Panzanella all day. Me too. Yum. Thank you. I’m new to reading your blog– what a treasure chest!

  4. I am also getting married – next week actually! Thank you SO much for posting your link to 50flowers. I think I’m going to order from them without a doubt.
    One question though, where are you finding your fiddlehead ferns??? I found a great bouquet at
    http://petalsedge.com/portfolio/portfolioPics/gyorfi.jpg but no matter how much I search, I can’t find a site with fiddlehead ferns or dahlias. I think I’m going to resort to calling a florist tomorrow.
    Happy Wedding!

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