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.

Greek Lamb with Yogurt Mint Sauce

Here’s a hint for new parents:  if a recipe claims to be “easy for entertaining” because you can make most of it ahead of time, latch on to that recipe and assemble everything when you’re not tripping over your children during The Dreaded Witching Hour.  I made the marinade for this lamb and mixed up the yogurt sauce late one night when both of my children were (miraculously) sleeping.  The next evening, I just had to broil the lamb chops and steam a vegetable for dinner, and we felt like we were dining in a restaurant – a terribly decorated, noisy restaurant with horrible service, but a restaurant with great food nonetheless!

From Barefoot Contessa:  How Easy is That?

One side note: the yogurt sauce was VERY minty, so if you’re not wild about mint, I would drastically reduce the amount of mint, or just eliminate it altogether.

French String Bean Salad

I like green beans.  I like them plain, and even raw.  I grew up eating them straight out of my grandmother’s garden, and I can’t get enough of them.  Someone Else Who Lives In My House would prefer that they be cooked within an inch of their life, preferably with bacon.  Marriage is all about compromise, or so I’m told, and this recipe (from Barefoot Contessa: How Easy is That?) provides an easy way to get that compromise.  I would still prefer them perfectly plain, but my husband really likes this mustard dressing.  The nice thing about it is that the dressing is added after the beans are lightly steamed (and served on the side, if desired), so we can both be happy.  If only the Contessa could mitigate the thermostat wars or make a Star Trek movie that doubles as a chick flick.

Herbed Ricotta Bruschettas

I made cheese!

Between this homemade ricotta (Barefoot Contessa How Easy is That?) and the peach ice cream earlier this week, I’m feeling like a regular dairy maid.  I didn’t have any chives, so I used fresh parsley instead.

 

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.

Weeknight Bolognese

My husband and I consider ourselves well-qualified tasters of bolognese, or spaghetti with meat sauce.  We’ve eaten it at restaurants, at home, and even (I will admit) a doctored-up version of the jarred variety from Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods.  It’s a staple at our house, and in our ordering rotation at restaurants.  This is, bar none, the best either of us has ever tasted.  I’ve made it twice in the last week, and it’s a testament to the health of our marriage that we split up the leftovers without a fight.

Cheddar Dill Scones

I made a half-batch of these (Barefoot Contessa Cookbook), which are great with dinner, or as a snack or breakfast.  If you’re not crazy about dill, I think rosemary or thyme would make a nice savory substitute to serve these with dinner.