Goat Cheese Baked in Tomato Sauce

This is one of our favorite dishes, if not THE absolute favorite... We first served it at a tapas restaurant here in Houston, and after our friend Aniko recreated it successfully at home, we decided to try it ourselves... It's been a permanent presence on our dinner table ever since. It's a fairly easy dish to make, perfect for a quick casual dinner for guests, too: it's quite presentable without having to spend hours in the kitchen, it only takes half an hour to make, using ingredients that I usually have lying around in the fridge and the "pantry". After experimenting for a while with different kinds of prepared tomato sauces, I chose the most basic tomato basil sauce, this is what I always go back to: Monte Bene Tomato Basil Sauce, available at Central Market. You can prepare your own tomato sauce if you like, but for a quick dinner it's better to have a jar of prepared tomato sauce on hand.

As usual, I tweaked the basic recipe just a tiny bit, to make it my own, by adding sun-dried tomatoes to the tomato sauce. Here's how I make it:

Ingredients (for 2):
12 oz prepared tomato sauce of your choice (Marinara, Tomato Basil, Roasted Garlic, etc.)
4 oz goat cheese (Chevre)
8 sun-dried tomato halves, diced

4 cloves of garlic, crushed (3 will go on the garlic toasts, 1 in the salad)
1 baguette, sliced or  8-10 Ciabatta slices
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 handful of basil leaves
mixed salad for serving.

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Chop the sun-dried tomatoes, then form the goat cheese into a ball, and place it in the middle of a small round oven safe baking dish. Ladle the prepared tomato sauce around the cheese, making sure that the cheese doesn't get covered with the sauce. Mix the sun-dried tomatoes into the tomato sauce, and pop it in the oven, for 20-25 minutes.

While the sauce is baking, prepare the toasted garlic bread. In a small bowl mix together the crushed garlic and the olive oil. Place the bread slices on a baking sheet and brush them with the olive oil and garlic mixture.

Bake the garlic bread for 10 minutes: just slide it next tot he sauce in the last 10 minutes of baking.

When both the sauce and the toast are ready (25 minutes total), remove them from the oven and serve the sauce on the toast with chopped basil and a nice mixed salad: I usually make a garlic vinaigrette adding 1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar and a pinch of sugar or 1/4 teaspoon honey to the remaining garlic-olive oil mixture.

Serving suggestions: