Vegan Breakfast in Spain

Back home we have pretty lame tomatoes. They are orangey-red at best and the flesh is pale pink. If I make a fresh tomato sauce in the UK I have to blanch the tomatoes in order to remove the skin and soften the flesh otherwise it ends up being pale lumps in a pan. I often have to add a bit of purree to my salsa to make it red and rich. To be honest, I'm quite embarrassed by the patheticness of our tomatoes.

In the past I have lived in flat shares with a number of people from different european countries and often I've listened to them, complain bitterly about the quality of our bread and the blandness of our tomatoes. Unfortunately, even though I like to stick up for many things British (you can get out of my house if you're going to slag off Marmite, Yorkshire Tea or Chip Butties) I tend to agree on the bread and tomato front. In my opinion, Germany has the best bread and Spain has the best tomatoes. So it's no surprise then, that all I want to do when I leave this country is to eat bread and tomatoes.

My Spanish flat mate at Essex university first introduced me to Tostada Tomate, a traditional Catalan breakfast.

Here's how she made it:

Take a slice of toast, it has to be oval shaped white toast (apparently).

Rub the toast with a peeled clove of garlic.

Grate a tomato and spread the pulp onto the toast like you would with jam.

Drizzle on extra virgin olive oil and sprinkle with rock salt.

In the top picture I'm having mine with scrambled tofu (based on the PPK recipe) and I've garnished it with some amazing sweet chilli peppers in brine that I found in the supermarket.

The colour fresh salsa should be!