Pesto parmesan bread

Nic and I were sitting back having our afternoon knock off beer the other night, watching the sun go over the hills and enjoying the cool evening breeze when our tummies started calling. We decided after Rome that we in fact are NOT on a 12 month holiday and we really shouldn’t keep on eating ‘chips and dips’ before dinner on a nightly basis!

We have been good, beer/wine only but it doesn’t stop as talking about what would be really yummy to eat at this moment in time; you know lemon/rosemary marinated olives; spicy eggplant, garlic and parsley dip; cheese platters of any description……. It sounds like torture I know but I figure if you’ve eaten the food before then you can recall the flavour in your memory and wash it down with a sip of cold beer.

We kind of fell off the band wagon last weekend (it was the weekend after all!) with a beer snack I swore and declared a decade ago I would NEVER make again as long as I live. Chef Anthony Green of Fabulous Fine Food in Melbourne will laugh at me for making pesto parmesan bread again after all these years, in fact I am sure when we both left our old stomping ground we both swore we’d never make it again……..It’s amazing what a decade of absence will do and what a walk down memory lane brings forth; maybe it was because we are in Italy and had all the ingredients in the kitchen?? Who knows, but one thing I do know is it tasted sooooo good!

The reason I swore I’d never make pesto parmesan bread again wasn’t because it was bad, it was because we use to make so much of it every day/night at the restaurant, I’m talking in the thousands. It was the ‘go to’ snack before dinner, waiting for friends, sorting out a hangover on Sunday mornings/afternoons, basically a really yummy snack that was too moorish to ignore and prefect with pretty much any beverage.

Ridiculously easy to make; first get some day old thick bread (fresh is fine but day old stands up better), toast one side, flip over and spread liberally with a good quality pesto then sprinkle with grated parmesan cheese (and I don’t mean the pre grated/shaved type).

Pop the pieces on a tray then back under the grill until the parmesan melts and gets a slight colouring. Remove, cut into bite size pieces and sever straight away for best results.

As I’m sitting here wishing I had some pesto left I am thinking this would be prefect served as a side with roast chicken and salad for a quick, easy summer dinner……