Shamefully, I let the end of a delicious loaf of marble rye go stale longer ago than I care to admit. For the last few days, I’ve been keeping an eye out for recipes that called for hard bread. At first I thought I’d make it into bread crumbs but my laziness for cleaning crumbs out of, well, anything got the better of me and I decided it would be best to use the bread more or less whole.

I came across this post by the Saucy Apron for Tomato Bread soup. It seemed just the ticket for an unseasonably cold day on which I happened to have all of the ingredients. But before I get to the recipe, I should say that I’ve been following the Saucy Apron for some weeks now. I have to resist the urge to bookmark almost every single one of her posts to try later. Her style seems very similar to mine: grab whatever is in the fridge, throw it together, see what happens. This was the perfect opportunity to try one.

Of course, because it’s me I couldn’t simply follow her instructions. I was low on broth and had no fresh basil on hand. I used way too much bread and mixed canned and fresh tomatoes. Jen decided to add some sharp cheddar on top instead of olive oil. The soup came out… good. Not great. But it’s definitely something I’m going to try again in the future, changing it a bit until it’s great. From what I’ve read on the Saucy Apron, sounds like she’d forgive me for playing around with one of her recipes. This recipe has definitely inspired me to experiment again. I can’t wait to try another one of hers!