I don’t know about you but I love fresh garden vegetables, even when I am overrun with them. Invariably, my husband plants a garden that is too big and we end up giving vegetables away by the bushel. I think the wonderful folks at First State Community Bank and All Y’All’s next door are going to start locking their doors when they see me coming for fear I will dump another 30 pounds of zucchini on them. In fear of facing them once more I have resorted to leaving them at the front door. ; )
As I drove to the pharmacy this morning Jerry had filled a plastic bag with “cherry” tomatoes and placed them in the front floorboard of my truck. He failed to tie the top. With the first corner I rounded there were tomatoes everywhere! I stopped almost immediately to pick them up and place them back in the bag and, of course, when I opened the truck door they began plopping out on the ground. If only tomatoes were square…
If you are like me I try to use every vegetable we harvest (or as outlined earlier I make sure someone else does if I am too blessed) as soon I will be craving fresh vegetables and will be forced to trudge through the snow to buy them at $3.00 a pound.
I am not the cook in our family but here is my feeble attempt at a quick and cool recipes for those wonderful tomatoes:
2 cups of salad tomatoes (cherry)
2 cups of fresh mozzarella cheese cut into chunks or “pearls”
1/2 cup of salad dressing of your choice
Fresh ground pepper to taste
Fresh basil cut or torn in small bits
Add ins: croutons, pine nuts, sunflower seeds, dried cherries or cranberries, or chilled Quinoa
Mix and savor
or
3 cups of any type of your favorite pasta cooked and chilled
1 cup of halved salad tomatoes
Fresh basil, torn or chopped (to taste)
1/4 cup of olive oil (add a tablespoon at a time if too dry)
2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar
Pinch of sea salt and fresh black pepper (to taste)
You can also start with hot pasta and heat through the other ingredients or use the add ins above for variety
or
Add fresh tomatoes to your favorite chili recipe, pasta, or pizza.
MAY ALL YOUR TOMATOES BE SQUARE!