Tomato, To-mah-to

It’s tomato season!

We can’t seem to get enough of these beautiful tomatoes.  I can’t think of any other food that when it’s good, it’s very, very good, and when it’s bad, it’s horrid.  Right now, they are very, very good.  We have a friend who says that there are some days that are so hot that all he wants to eat is a tomato.  I’ve never been that hot.  But I have enjoyed some of these fresh tomato recipes.

First, Tomato Mozzarella and Basil (Barefoot Contessa Family Style).  This might be my favorite tomato recipe, and we used the fresh heirloom tomatoes from our CSA box for this.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve made this salad, and this is probably the ugliest batch I’ve ever made.  But guess what?  Still awesome.

Next up:  Tomato Mozzarella and Pesto Panini (Barefoot Contessa at Home).  There’s a reason that this isn’t an actual panini.

My dad had a panini maker for his grocery store’s deli.  He sold the store, and kept the panini maker, and then generously gave it to me.  The catch?  It was an industrial-grade panini maker, which only plugged into an industrial-grade electrical outlet.  In other words, we’d have to unplug our dryer to plug in the panini maker.  Realizing how impractical that was, we sold the panini grill, and suffered through with an electric griddle for these sandwiches instead.  We didn’t even have any fancy crusty bread, so we used regular boring sandwich bread.  Even with all of those intervening forces, these sandwiches were amazing.

Finally (for now), Greek Panzanella (from Barefoot Contessa:  How Easy is That?).  This was simply amazing, and even though the leftovers were a little soggy a day or two later, I still gobbled them up, and happily.  I approached panzanella with some trepidation, since I’d never made or eaten it before.  I needn’t have worried – as it turns out, as weird as “bread salad” sounds, it tastes pretty good.  Think of a salad with more croutons and no lettuce, and there you go.  The oregano and red wine vinaigrette used in this recipe would make a great marinade for grilled chicken to top a green salad.  All of these vegetables came from our CSA box.

Bonus item:  This is not a Barefoot Contessa recipe, but maybe it should be.  I met my friend Amber during my first week of college, and we reconnected a few years ago.  Amber is one of the funniest, most delightful, interesting, and interested people I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting.  I love that we can keep in touch through her food blog, Awake at the Whisk.  I made her Roasted Heirloom Tomato Freezer Sauce last week, and it could not have been easier.  (If you’re keeping track of how many tomatoes we’ve eaten, add in some BLTs for four adults over the weekend, and yes, I had to go to the farmers’ market to buy more tomatoes.)  I used the marinara on Eggplant Parmesan, and we gobbled it all up.

Here are the tomatoes ready to be roasted.  We had a little extra excitement as I brought in the fresh basil from the back porch – a little green worm stowed away and tried to make it into our sauce!  Luckily I spotted it before I added extra protein to the recipe.  Yikes!  I must grow really good basil if even the worms want some.

I’d love to hear about your favorite tomato recipe.  During the summer that my husband and I first met, he told me “I just love a plain tomato.  With salt and pepper.  And white bread.  And mayonnaise.”  I had to break it to him that that wasn’t exactly a “plain” tomato.  What’s your favorite way to eat tomatoes?

Summer Barbecue

Here in Minnesota, the summers are short, but beautiful and comfortable.  We try to squeeze in as many cookouts, outdoor activities, and casual entertaining opportunities as we can before the leaves start to fall.  Last week, we had a casual cookout with burgers, beans, and these beauties.

The crudite platter, which doesn’t exactly resemble the one in The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook, but isn’t it gorgeous?

Those are purple carrots from our CSA.  They are a deep red/purple on the outside, and light orange on the inside.  My 3-year-old thinks this is hilarious.

We also made the tarragon potato salad from Barefoot Contessa:  How Easy is That?

The best part about this cookout is that we got to spend some time with wonderful friends, whose family includes a few hungry teenage boys.  I love feeding hungry kids!

Farmers’ Market Finds

Even though our Community Supported Agriculture farm has been supplying us with a wealth of great produce this season, I still like to visit farmers’ markets to supplement our table.  You see, the CSA box provides just the right amount for what a normal family would want to eat.  But what if you want zucchini coming out of your ears, like a real gardener?  (There’s an old joke in my hometown that you shouldn’t leave your car unlocked in the summer, not to prevent theft, but to prevent zealous gardeners from giving you their surplus zucchini.)  I have neither the time, space, skill, nor inclination to actually garden, so I market instead.  I wanted more than what we could eat for dinner, so I could bake with some, freeze some, and just revel in the surplus of it.

Besides, the farmers’ market was on our summer list.

I brought home enough zucchini to eat some for lunch, freeze four cups of it, and bake this zucchini bread and these zucchini brownies.  (Trust me.  Zucchini brownies = good.)

While we were there, I couldn’t resist some ears of corn and these herbs.

Even though I have three healthy basil plants on the porch, I couldn’t resist that beautiful bunch of basil for $1.  This is what we had for dinner that night.  I had enough pesto to freeze, and enough leftover basil for salad dressing.

The recipe is for Spaghettoni Al Pesto (Barefoot Contessa Parties!), and you’ll probably notice that the picture doesn’t show spaghettoni.  That’s rigatoni, which rhymes with spaghettoni, and that’s good enough for me.

I had less of an idea of what I would do with the dill, but seeing those big, flowery bunches reminded me of my grandmother.  She grew acres of vegetables and herbs every summer, and I remember the dill on the edge of the garden.  The smell of dill always brings me back to her, and that garden.  Unlike a lot of people, I don’t have a lot of good food memories of my grandmother – she was pretty much insane, and not in a charming way – but the garden and the dill made me smile.
I brought it home and made a small batch of creamy cucumber salad, from Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics.

Garlic Roasted Cauliflower

I know very few people who look at a head of cauliflower and can’t wait to dive into it.  There seem to be two approaches for cooking it:  disguise it to make it taste like something else (e.g., mashed cauliflower to resemble mashed potatoes, pureed cauliflower in macaroni and cheese), or do something creative with it to make it a little more palatable in its original state (like here and here).

This recipe, from Barefoot Contessa: How Easy is That?, fits into the latter category.  It was good, and it probably wins our “least bad” cauliflower award.  How’s that for a ringing endorsement?  I added some kohlrabi from the CSA box to this batch.

Buttermilk Ranch Dressing

So long, Hidden Valley.  This salad dressing is amazing, and I may never buy the commercial version again.  We eat a lot of salad this time of year, and our CSA does a good job of supplying us with lettuce and salad greens for most of the summer.  I think that this dressing (from Barefoot Contessa: How Easy is That?) will be a staple in our refrigerator for the rest of the season.  Don’t be intimidated by the long list of ingredients, because this makes a big enough batch to make several salads.

Roasted Salmon with Green Herbs, Snap Peas with Pancetta and Pecorino

This was the perfect summer meal.  The salmon used lots of fresh herbs, and I didn’t mind turning on the oven to roast it because it was really only on for ten minutes or so.  The recipe calls for green onions, but we got red/purple scallions from our CSA that I used instead.  The Snap Peas were also from our CSA farm, and we really liked them this way.  Bonus:  the whole meal was cooked in about 20 minutes.  Both recipes came from Barefoot Contessa:  How Easy Is That?

 

Lemon Chicken Breasts (or Thighs, if you’re feeling rebellious or just cheap)

This recipe comes from Barefoot Contessa:  How Easy is That?

If I had actually followed the directions, it would probably look a lot more like the photo in the cookbook.  Instead, I substituted garlic scapes for cloves of garlic and summer savory instead of oregano and thyme.  I also substituted chicken stock for wine, and used way too much of it, both because I’m too lazy to go out and buy wine, and not motivated enough to actually measure anything.  And of course, I used thighs instead of breasts because that’s what we had.

These are garlic scapes. They look weird, don't they?

The results were still good, if ugly.  It has been deemed worthy of repeating, at the very least.  It’s great to have another use for chicken, and we’re always looking for something (hopefully a protein) to go with our vegetables in the summer.  I think that these ingredients would make a nice marinade for the grill, too, if you didn’t want to heat up the oven.

Dear Ina,

Dear Ina,

You know I adore you.  Why else would I take on this insane project and preach the Contessa gospel to everyone I know?  Sure, there have been a few bumpy stretches along the path, but I’ve reconciled those bumps with the fact that you have an irrational fear of slow cookers.  But why on earth would I take the time to wash, peel, and shred beautiful organic carrots, only to add them to a mayonaisse-y, gloppy, salad (Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics)?  Even my husband, who loves all things mayonnaise, would refuse to eat that.  It has RAISINS in it, for crying out loud.  I have to draw the line somewhere, and I’m drawing it right in front of this atrocity.  Plus, it was my birthday.  If I’m going to make my own birthday cake, it damn well better be perfect.

In its stead, I made this lovely carrot cake, with no raisins, thank you.  It was perfection.  So there.

Still yours,

The Curessa

When life (or your CSA, or your garden) hands you cucumbers…

… make tzatziki!  We love this with grilled pork or lamb, or just as a dip with crackers and raw veggies.  Plus, you get to feel like an ancient chemist when you drain the cucumbers and the yogurt.  That’s just me, you say?  Well, just leave me with my delusions, then, please.

Unfortunately, a photo can’t do this dip/sauce justice.  It can’t capture the creamy coolness of the yogurt and the brightness of the lemon juice, paired with the crispness of the cucumbers and the earthiness of the dill.  You’ll just have to make it yourself to see.

Barefoot Contessa Parties!

Sugar Snap Peas with Sesame

From The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook