‘Matoes
I’ve been able to harvest quite a lot of tomatoes over the past couple weeks—the cherry tomatoes ripened first, and they’re still coming in waves, while now we’re getting these little plum-sized guys as well. I honestly don’t remember the varietal: I think it was either Stupice or San Francisco Fog. I’ve also gotten a few bigger, darker tomatoes from our third plant, though most of those are still green. (Was it Cherokee Purple? Next time I’m writing the varieties down somewhere.)
So I’ve been making a lot of tomato salads. Garden tomatoes with cucumber, olives, and feta—or with basil and fresh mozzarella—yum! Still, the tomatoes are coming faster than we can eat them. Time to start foisting them on the neighbors!
September 17th, 2012 at 4:38 pm
I have a great recipe for an oven-roasted fall tomato soup, and another for a puttanesca that’s also made in the oven. Both freeze beautifully–let me know if you’d like either. I also make oven-dried tomatoes–that would work with the cherries.
September 17th, 2012 at 5:03 pm
I’d love your puttanesca recipe! Actually I’d love both recipes, but puttanesca’s one of our favorite pastas–and not just for the name 🙂
September 18th, 2012 at 5:18 pm
I love the name, too. 🙂 Here’s the Herbed Oven-Roasted Puttanesca: https://www.hannaford.com/recipe/Recipes/Fresh-Magazine/Marinades-Rubs-Sauces/Oven-Roasted-Herbed-Puttanesca-Sauce/pc/22280/c/28833/sc/28853/10431.uts#
It’s from a free supermarket magazine, of all things. It’s fantastic. I omit the anchovies–and I think they’re crazy to say you could can this safely in a hot water bath cannner, incidentally. But it freezes beautifully. I haven’t found it needs the sugar, and of course I keep it chunky rather than pureeing it. I’ve tended to do the longer roasting time they list. I’ve made it a couple of times with all orange tomatoes (orange banana paste and Sungold cherry), which is gorgeous.
The roasted fall tomato soup is from Deborah Madison’s _Vegetable Soups._ It’s a brilliant cookbook, if sometimes fussy. I love this recipe because you just slice onions, halve tomatoes, stick slivers of garlic in them, drizzle the whole thing with oil, salt, pepper, and honey, and roast it. Then you puree it, run it through a food mill to get the bits of skin and seeds out, add some curry powder–and voila, soup! You don’t add any water, and you don’t cook it on the stove. It tastes fantastic. (You’re supposed to serve it with a dollop of saffron quinoa, but I’ve never done that–I always end up simplifying her recipes.)
On the topic of recipes, another cookbook you might enjoy if you don’t have it already is _Fresh Food Fast_ by Peter Berley. A bland title, but an amazing cookbook. It’s arranged by season, and within that, the recipes come in pairs–a main dish and a side that together make a meal. It’s the same kind of high-flavor, sophisticated, vegetable-centric, beautifully presented food that Deborah Madison makes, but with all the fussy steps taken out.
September 22nd, 2012 at 8:15 am
Awesome, thank you!
I love the idea of paired recipes, too.
September 21st, 2012 at 11:19 pm
Add scalloped tomatoes to the roster?
http://smells-like-home.com/2010/07/summer-scalloped-tomatoes-with-croutons/
September 22nd, 2012 at 8:14 am
ooh, pretty!
September 23rd, 2012 at 9:45 am
Oh, lovely! So glad your tomatoes are doing well–I hear more bad news than good from area tomato growers lately, it seems. These are gorgeous, and Stupice is up there with best tomato names.