… after Sunday Dinner

It’s tomato season. I love it!

This year Mariquita Farm instituted a Buying Club in addition to they’re Mystery Boxes… they had a lot of tomatoes and peppers to move. In years past, I’ve gone to their U-Pick days at the farm and enjoyed picking my own tomatoes, but that’s 100 miles one way. To make that drive worthwhile, we’ve often combined it with a weekend trip to the Santa Cruz area or the Sierra foothills. This year, I’m content to let Julia do the driving.

In any case, I got into the tomato swing with a 10 pound box of heirloom tomatoes, then a 20 pound flat of San Marzanos, and now I’m working on a 20 pound flat of Early Girls.

20 pound flat of Early Girls

I’ve written extensively on tomatoes in the past: Tomato Water, Tomatoes Tomatoes Tomatoes, Meet the Manchurian Mothership and Tomato Sausage Bake, but that won’t stop me from recounting some recent adventures. This first is oh so simple, but it illustrates the value and versatility of tomatoes.

Carol made Sunday dinner while I was enthralled with NFL games — all close, and my teams won. She lifted a Tagliatelle with Corn and Cherry Tomatoes recipe by Anne Burrell from the Food Network website. It was easy and quick and pretty good, but I thought it rather bland, for good reason. It called for a pint of halved grape tomatoes, and Carol used what we had on hand… far fewer than that. The good thing is, it was finished with LOTS of grated parmigiana.

cheesy pasta and tomatoes about to get together

In any case, on Monday, since I had a whole box of Early Girl tomatoes, I picked out four beauties, peeled and seeded them and cooked them down with a little olive oil. To that, I added a leftover portion of Sunday night’s pasta.

together at last

Whoa, that’s just what the food doctor ordered. The tomatoes blended nicely with the cheese of the pasta and brightened up the dish to yumminess.