It’s that time of year here in the midwest. The time of year when dinner can be a tomato sandwich - good bread toasted, a little mayo and some slices of juicy red tomato - at the least! Add bacon, lettuce, basil, an egg - any variation to turn it up!
My kitchen counter boosts a never ending bowl of sun sugar tomatoes to pop in my mouth each time I walk by.
Hail the tomato!
What is your favorite tomato variety? Do you buy a certain type of tomato to make a certain recipe? What goes on your 'mater sandwich??? A favorite recipe that highlights the tomato???
One of my favorite childhood tomatoes is stopping at a roadside rest area on family roadtrips. Dad would pull the HUGE steel cooler out of the trunk where Mom had packed sandwiches and such. And on the picnic table would be placed beautiful red tomatoes from my Dad’s garden. Dad would slice them in half, hand us each one with the salt shaker. Tomato in hand…a little salt…bliss!!!
Heaven’s gift for the summer table, IMO. Not too much can beat a good BLT during the summer months! You need good mayo and my new favorite is Sir Kensington’s mayo.
Mozzarella (or even better burrata) basil and tomatoes. We’ve got a bunch of heirlooms from the farmer’s market. I like the black brandywines and the green zebras.
One of the early things DH and I learned abut each other was our mutual love of a tomato sandwich, fat slices of beefsteak, warm from being fresh picked. But on white bread (is that the old southern way?,) either the mushy cheap sort or ‘county white’ was ok. Not toasted.
One of my fav memories is working in a resort area in the NY mountains, getting a whole tomato and eating it like an apple, while my coworkers and I drove around the lake.
Any fresh tomato that has escaped the 1) deer, 2) chipmunks and 3) squirrels roaming my property is a delight to me.
The deer fence now surrounding my raised beds only handles category one.
The book “The $64 Tomato: How One Man Nearly Lost His Sanity, Spent a Fortune, and Endured an Existential Crisis in the Quest for the Perfect Garden” resonates with me.
Yesterday, in desperation after the most recent animal bites on my harvest, I put clear plastic baggies on each of my ripening tomatoes, hoping that the animals will be deterred by a mouthful of plastic. I call this approach my “tomato condoms.”
Meanwhile, I agree that a good BLT is a delightful summer treat, and one of very few instances in which I allow myself to eat bacon. (I never buy it in the supermarket, only have it when eating out.)
I also enjoy a simple home-grown tomato sliced thin with a topping of fresh basil leaves, and also savor small cherry tomatoes popped in the mouth fresh from the plant.
Since cherry tomatoes have been mentioned, does anyone else have a tomato plant which occasionally produces seedless, cherry-sized fruits in addition to full sized tomatoes? My theory is that those ones are from unfertilized flowers, but if anyone knows the cause for sure I’d be interested to learn.
Tomatoes are self-pollinating. Sounds like something unusual going on, if it’s got full sized and undersized red/ripe cherries. Is this plant in a container?
@JEM , I believe it is deer that are also munching on my heirloom tomatoes - argh! I’ve started picking them before they are “ready” in the hopes of beating the deer to them. So frustrating to look at my plant and see a BEAUTIFUL full tomato - only 1/3 of it is eaten away!!!
I’ve been buying Campari tomatoes. Putting them in everything. I make a homemade pizza with herbs, fresh spinach leaves, covered with thinly sliced tomatoes, light amount of shredded cheese, and then topped with more veggies. (different color peppers, avocado, and red onions). Little bit of oregano, parsley, basil, crushed garlic, crushed red pepper and a bit of olive oil. A little bit of lemon pepper gives it a zing. Thin crust but very filling with all the toppings.
I am gardening for the first time. I have one tomato plant that’s doing just fine – it has several globes of goodness growing on it.
The other one I apparently planted too close to the squash and cucumbers… which have vines climbing/twisting themselves all over that tomato plant. The wire support thing will keep the afflicted tomato plant from falling entirely – and there are a few small tomatoes growing on it – but still, it leaves me thinking that squash and cucumbers are jerks. hehe
Anyway, I love tomatoes of all kinds and eat them on salads, sandwiches, in pasta, etc.
You guys got me so in the mood for a BLT that I went down to the supposedly gourmet sandwich shop in my office building and got one.
Big mistake! Man, does this place know how to screw up a BLT! It was awful! What kind of a place puts “vegan-aise” instead of mayo on a BLT? What kind of a place douses the lettuce in a sickly sweet balsamic dressing for a BLT? And why use mushy heirloom tomatoes? Not to mention the burnt, greasy bread. Even the bacon was overly sweet and not good.
And the kicker? $16 (plus $1 tip) for a take-out BLT, Diet Coke and bag of chips.
At our CSA, our half share included 12 pounds of heirloom tomatoes last week, and six pounds this week, plus a pint of heirloom cherry tomatoes each week. Which is a lot for two people, one of whom is traveling a lot on business. My wife has made various tomato and something galettes, and I have been making gazpacho furiously with the stragglers. We also have 3-4 plants in our garden which are finally beginning to produce, although as with others mainly for the deer, not us.
