![]() ![]() When I first wrote this post it was the summer that my friends Zack and Victoria Gadberry had just added a new hand crafted cheese to their line up of already fabulous locally made artisan mozzarella, ricotta, buratta and feta cheeses – behold, local Uno Alla Volta Cheese Cottage Cheese. Serve over a bed of crisp greens or toss with fresh sliced Kirby cucumbers and enjoy. Layer the tomatoes in a shallow glass or plastic dish, top with the vinaigrette, season to taste with salt and pepper, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for three to four hours. Use your favorite vinegar based dressing or make your own by combining a half cup or so each of red and balsamic vinegars seasoned with a couple of tablespoons of local honey, one quarter cup of fresh minced basil leaves and a small minced shallot. Marinate tomatoes for full-flavored summer salads. ![]() To turn this sandwich into a summer comfort food, wrap it in foil and warm it in a 300 degree oven for about 15 minutes or so. If you have really gotten it right, you’ll have to lean over the kitchen sink to eat it as the tomatoes will be so ripe and juicy, that has you take each bite the juices will run from your mouth and hands down to your elbows – consider it a rite of passage of eating your first (or your 100th) tomato sammy of the season.įor a little more elaborate sandwich, use whole grain bread, spread with homemade pesto and layered with thick slices of ripe tomato and locally made Uno Alla Volta mozzarella cheese in between. Sandwich thick slices of firm but ripe tomato seasoned with a little salt and pepper in between and have at it. The classic recipe calls only for two slices of soft white bread dressed with a little mayo ( Your choice of brands, but I’m a Duke’s gal). But, before you slice and bake, though, don’t miss one of summer’s Tomato Time greatest pleasures of them all – the unadulterated old fashioned ‘mater sandwich – a classic for sure.ĭon’t even think of adding sliced turkey, roast beef or a leaf of lettuce to this one. Today I share my favorite recipe for Tomato Pie, and a video from a segment several years ago on a WCNC broadcast of Charlotte Today. When its Tomato Time, You May Say Tomat-ah… But, I say Tomato Sandwich and Tomato Pie For more great summer homegrown tomato recipes, check out this blog post which first appeared the summer of 2017. So many ways to prepare them it’s uncanny but then you could can (or freeze) and have that fresh off the vine flavor for cooking all year round. I think I could eat fresh picked ripe and ready tomatoes everyday till the season has passed and still not tire of the flavor. Today we’ll leave the other veggies for another post and concentrate on my love of local tomatoes because, well, its Tomato Time! These mid to late-summer months find us at the height of the season for an abundance locally grown tomatoes, cucumbers, corn, melons, squash, zucchini, eggplant and berries and I am having a ball with the abundant harvest. My tomato time is now resigned to the kitchen where my purple thumb and I seem to know what we are doing. I still dig in the dirt, for fun, not really for a harvest of any kind, I now spend that same time shopping each week at local farmers markets to get tomatoes that taste, well, the way tomatoes should. To that end, my purple thumb and I have retired from the vegetable garden business seasons ago. While I guess I could say that the process does prove therapeutic I just finally decided it’s just easier, cheaper and frankly much more fun to make a regular trip’s to any one of our areas fine local farmer’s markets and buy from growers who know what they are doing. ![]() To say nothing of what the maintenance and upkeep of the cucumber and melon plants might run me. Tomatoes, in particular have seemed to be my nemesis.Īfter buying the plants, the potting soil, the lime so the soil will be well balanced, the food, the stakes, the natural bug spray so I wouldn’t get bitten while I was out planting, and all of the stuff to keep the squirrels and other critters away, I figured that any tomatoes I might be lucky enough to harvest without the dreaded circle of black bottom rot that seems to appear overnight would wind up costing about $50 a piece – an expensive price to pay for this once a year tomato time season. I still do plant in my raised bed garden and patio pots each season, but now its really more for the fun of it than the anticipation of any great harvest. A couple of seasons ago I finally decided to admit defeat. Nothing big, mind you, just some patio tomatoes, a few cucumbers and maybe a melon or two. It’s summer and that means, it’s Tomato Time! For years – honestly, more summer seasons than I would like to admit – I have tried to grow my own produce. ![]()
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