Time to Gear Up for Tomato Season

I think we’ve mentioned this before, but we’re going to be getting a lot of tomatoes . . . I am planning on eating a lot of mine on toasted bread with bacon and lettuce and a soupcon of mayonnaise, or cut into segments like an orange and topped wit a dollop of cottage cheese sprinkled with fresh chopped basil and black pepper, or sliced and layered with fresh mozzarella slices and basil, or . . . okay, I could go on and on describing ways to eat tomatoes pretty much as nature intended them, fresh off the vine.

But there are plenty of great recipes for tomatoes, too; some of them have already been included in the Enright CSA blog, so I’ll just provide links back to those recipes. The first is for Gazpacho, aka cold Mexican tomato soup. This uses cucumbers, too, and heavens knows we have gotten a lot of cucumbers lately. (The photo at the top of this blog entry shows a batch of gazpacho in progress.)

The second is for Grilled Caprese Salad; you probably know that Caprese Salad is concocted from fresh tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and fresh basil, with a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar. It’s, well, a very fresh way to eat your tomatoes. But just try running it under the broiler for a few minutes for a warm version that is pretty great, too. Caprese Salad simply means “salad in the style they make it on the Isle of Capri,” an island off the coast of Naples, Italy. It’s called Capri from the Latin word capreae, which means goats. The Romans called it the “Isle of Goats,” and I expect that fresh goat cheese was originally used in Caprese Salad. Which sounds pretty good, now that I mention it.

Baked Tomatoes
One more quick and simple tomato preparation (it's too easy to warrant a recipe) to end this blog: Baked Tomatoes. Take a few tomatoes and cut off the top, making a flat top. Score the top of the tomatoes with a knife, then spread on just a little mustard of your choice. Sprinkle the tops of each tomato with salt and pepper to taste, bread crumbs, and anything else that sounds good—thyme, tarragon, basil, parmesan cheese—the garnish is up to you. Put the tomatoes in separate compartments of a muffin pan and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. A real taste treat!

Coming soon—recipes that use tomatoes AND zucchini!