When I shared a CSA with a friend, we got more variants of kale, chard, sprouts, rabes, mustard, turnip and radish greens, that sort of thing, than I knew even existed. After a while, I couldn’t tell them apart. Good in soups, though. But only so much I could do with that much.
About heirlooms, just my experience, but I haven’t found one that reminds me of the original beefsteaks of yore. If someone wants to recommend a breed or describe the appearance, I can look for them at the farmers mkt this week.
Tomato and onion salad. Wedges of tomatoes, skinny wedges of onions, lots of torn up home grown basil, crushed garlic, olive oil and salt. Make it early and cool in in fridge. Mix in torn up pieces of baguette before serving and serve with baguette rounds.The baguette in the with the salad soaks up the juices. Yummmmm.
I am so hungry now. This makes a complete dinner for us.
Fresh farm grown tomato wedges with dollop of mayo with sea salt and fresh ground pepper as a side to boiled Maine lobster and fresh native Maine corn on the cob makes me cry that we are leaving Maine in a few very short days. Of course the fresh blueberry pie for the finish just screams summer is great but almost over.
It’s me vs the tomato every year, doing everything in my power to get them ripe earlier in the summer. It never seems to happen, even when I resort to starting out with very large potted ones from the greenhouse. We have fresh tomatoes with most summer meals. (sneaks off to set out bacon for tomorrow’s BLTs)
I’m growing a “new heirloom” (seriously, that’s what the ad copy said) called Blush this year. Prolific, tasty, cute, thin skinned. Pretty too. Love it and will plant again. Also have my old favorites: pineapple, brandywine, Cherokee purple. New early tomato (small and firm) called Fourth of July, which actually had ripe fruit on July 6, which is way early for my garden, which normally doesn’t even have Sungold cherry tomatoes until late July. Made myself the perfect BLT and posted it to Facebook last weekend: bacon, avocado, pineapple tomato, ciabatta bread sliced thick and toasted. No mayo. No lettuce.
I shared this tomato recipe in a 2007 thread, so I guess it’s not too soon to share again:)
A long time summer favorite at our house - Marinated Tomatoes:
about 2 dozen medium ripe tomatoes
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup vinegar
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon salt
red pepper to taste
1 garlic clove for every 6 tomatoes
1 tablespoon seed thyme
Quarter tomatoes; do not peel. Combine other ingredients and pour over tomatoes at least 1 hour before serving.
Variation: add sliced onions and cucumbers.
Also, this dressing is a favorite drizzled over pasta and parmesan for my picky eater.
I have an overwhelming craving now for a BLT on Three Cheese Semolina bread with Duke’s mayonnaise.
One of my favorites is tomato pie made with heirloom tomatoes, Vidalia onion, crumbled bacon, Gruyere and Parmesan cheese, mayo, basil, chives, and fresh ground pepper.
I also love a simple summer salad of tomatoes, cucumber and Vidalia onion marinated in mixture of vinegar, oil, water, sugar, salt and Tellicherry pepper.
JEM, if the blasted pests decide to chew on the plastic, spray some cayenne pepper spray or bitter apple on the plastic next time. That will get them!
nottelling, it happened to me with a grilled cheese sandwich. It was advertised as a Beecher’s grilled cheese, but tasted like a piece of cardboard. So sorry your BLT was overpriced and inedible!
I like my tomatoes with mozzarella and basil or in a tomato/cuke/green onion salad.
@abasket , what you described in your first post sounds like what we call “tomatoes on toast”. Thick slabs of tomato on toasted bread that is smeared with mayo and the tomatoes are sprinkled with salt. Sometimes we use pesto, sometimes we use a seasoned salt like Herbamare. So simple, yet you can’t improve it! I like to have it for breakfast.
My favorite varieties are two heirlooms called Carbon and Hawaiian Pineapple. Carbon is a black tomato, deep and rich with an excellent flavor. HP is orange and so fleshy that you feel like you’re cutting into a mango. The flavor is lighter, almost fruity. I used to buy the plants at a place called Debaggio in VA but now I’m too far. I have some seed so I’ll try again next year but I’m not the best at growing from seed.
For mayo, I use an excellent one called Blue Plate but I like Dukes and Hellmans too.
Enjoy! We are in a bit of a tomato lull here until the fall crop starts.
@jem-
You aren’t alone, in my case I suspect birds and a groundhog that has figured out a way under the chickenwire fence that is on the perimeter. This year has been especially bad, my fruit trees were wiped out before the fruit even got anywhere near ripe (2 apple trees, pears, peach tree), and in my garden birds have been pecking the tomatoes along with the groundhog (and maybe chipmunks and squirrels). We have gotten some tomatoes and some peppers, a few zucchini (which along with the cucumbers I think were the victims of white mildew from all the rain we have had this year, which limited our harvest). Last year we had a bumper harvest of tomatoes, this year not so much.
Given the wildlife in my area, I’ve foregone home gardening and prefer to make use of my local farmers market, farm stands and my grocery which carries local produce in season. I think it would be an exercise in futility otherwise. A local refugee group has a community garden and they sell their extra produce so I love to support them when I can.
So sorry your BLT was overpriced and inedible!