Marinated Feta & Tomato Toast

Hey, it's Carla.

I'm here at Element Hotels.

I actually travel quite a bit for work,

and one of the things that is great about staying here

is that Studio Commons has a fully-equipped kitchen

where I can not have to rely on eating all of my meals out.

Today, what I'm going to show you

is a really easy vegetarian but quite sustaining snack

that I would totally run back here to make

between lunch and dinner.

I've got a block of feta,

and I'm gonna break this up into smaller pieces,

and throw a quick marinade on it.

It's very high on protein.

Just enough olive oil to kind of,

generously cover everything.

Cherry tomatoes, and I like the packages

that come with the multi-colored.

Just gonna cut this in half.

Now, the tricky bit.

Just gonna get the tomatoes in the bowl.

Amazing.

Now, I've got these three pepperoncini.

If you like things more spicy, you could certainly use more.

You can cut them smaller.

I'm just gonna do them in rings

and add them to the tomatoes.

You don't have to buy, you know,

if you're just cooking a meal or two for yourself

during your stay,

you don't need to go out and buy also, vinegar.

Just use the brine from the jar.

Same here, just enough olive oil to kind of,

get everybody luxuriously coated.

Little salt and pepper on these guys.

A handful, a couple handfuls [laughs] of fresh thyme.

Crush it in your hands.

And what that does, it just releases

all of the essential oils.

It's a hardy herb and there's tons of essential oils

kind of, lingering in the stems themselves.

Now that all of that aroma is released,

I'm just adding them there.

So, you're gonna get all of the flavor of the thyme

without actually biting into a leaf or a stem

in the finished dish.

It's really because of the juiciness of the tomatoes,

they're gonna kind of make their own vinaigrette.

So, I'm gonna toast some bread, and while I'm doing that,

the tomatoes and the feta

are just gonna hang out and marinate.

This is just a small boule,

and I'm gonna take four inch-ish thick slices out of it.

Look for something that's a little bit crusty.

[knife sawing] [chuckles]

Crusty. [laughs]

So, this is really nice, fresh, delicious bread.

I just wanna put enough of a little toast on it

so that the bread itself is dried out

to absorb all the tomatoes and feta

that I'm gonna put on top.

These are perfect.

The first thing I'm gonna do is put down the feta.

Once it also hits this toasty bread,

it's gonna soften up a little bit more.

I'll get even more aroma from the thyme.

Feels a lot more lot luxurious than the bag of almonds

that I ate on the plane.

I'm just gonna use a fork

to kind of smash it into the bread a little bit.

[jazzy music]

I like to use the feta on the bottom

because the tomato mixture is so juicy now.

Tomato juices are also gonna season the feta.

This to me is the ideal snack.

It has protein, it's a little spicy,

it's got fresh produce.

I got everything from the same store,

and I think the best part is that

I did not even have to leave the hotel to get it.

[bread crunching] Mmm!

It's really good, if I must say so myself.

[jazzy music]