Something Tomato-Inclusive
I don't know if tomato-inclusive is really a word, but it should be one for August. Tomatoes keep ripening, a few every day. I have a big bowl of plum tomatoes, a colander half full of yellow pear tomatoes, several Romas in a size larger than I've seen in stores (and much more tasty, I assure you), and a few paste type tomatoes, too. I don't have quite enough to can; I did some of that a few days ago. What now? Eat tomatoes. Cook tomatoes. Look for ideas with tomatoes.
BLT sandwiches - preferably on homemade bread - are popular with three out of four in the family. Grilled cheese with a thin tomato slice works; even better, add enough herbs and a little ham or turkey and call it a panini. Salads, of course, incorporating as many tomatoes as possible. But that might not be enough. I predict tomato soup soon. Next week I start school, which means the crock pot will become a mainstay of supper preparations. Crock Pot Tomato Soup on the way! Or maybe minestrone. Minestrone (a.k.a. Oops Soup) is good with a tomato base.
Stumble It!
BLT sandwiches - preferably on homemade bread - are popular with three out of four in the family. Grilled cheese with a thin tomato slice works; even better, add enough herbs and a little ham or turkey and call it a panini. Salads, of course, incorporating as many tomatoes as possible. But that might not be enough. I predict tomato soup soon. Next week I start school, which means the crock pot will become a mainstay of supper preparations. Crock Pot Tomato Soup on the way! Or maybe minestrone. Minestrone (a.k.a. Oops Soup) is good with a tomato base.
I was reading Michael Perry's book Truck: a love story (wonderful read - I highly recommend it) and found myself paging through the first chapters not for details of his International Harvester pick-up truck, but for a simple tomato recipe he mentioned. In his then-bachelor cooking style, the dish described was more a concept than a recipe, but it sounded good.
The plant yielded some good tomatoes. I roasted them in a deep pan with salt, olive oil, cloves of unshucked garlic, and sprigs of thyme. You ladle off the juice every twenty minutes of so and freeze it for a sweet, delicate stock best consumed during snowstorms. The residual pulp gathers body from the garlic and spirit from the thyme. The spent garlic, when squeezed warmly from its husk directly upon your tongue, will slacken your face and make you shimmy.
-from Truck: a love story by Wisconsin author Michael Perry
I think I'll try this. We can have it fresh over rice or pasta, and I'll freeze the rest for winter. What should I call it? Perry tomatoes? MP herbed tomatoes? Garden Garlic? Readers, help me out. What would you name this tomato dish?
Labels: garden, kitchen stories, So many books: So little time
Stumble It!
posted @6:16 AM
3 Comments:
I'd call them Truck Tomatoes.
I'm with you on the amount of tomatoes -- I have too many to eat easily, but not enough to can. What I'm doing instead is cooking them in small batches, running them through the food mill to make sauce, and then freezing them in containers. Each container is enough to make a batch of pasta sauce for my family (2 cups or thereabouts).
I agree--Truck Tomatoes.
We eat them baked--sliced in half, placed in a shallow pan, brushed with butter and topped with a mixture of 1/4 C melted butter, 1/3 C bread crumbs, 1/4 C shredded Parmesan, 2 t minced parsley. YUM!
Who has time to name anything when the tomatoes are ripening?
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