I have one word for you: Beefsteak. They are the god tomatoe. Yum.

You betcha. Yellow pear, Brandywine, SweetMillions, Sweet 100s, Early Girl, Romas, Green Zebras (although they aren't quite ripe...I don't think...how do you tell? They're green!!!), Celebrity, and Jet star here...although I was so busy perennial gardening that I didn't stake them this year, so my garden is almost impassible with tomatos. The good thing is that all the spots that the vines sent down roots means that they aren't having problems with drought.

So far, this morning I had an omlet with fresh basil, onion & halved sweet millions topped with mozzarella. Last night was bruschetta. I'm also drying them. :) Since my cucurbits were all nailed by squash beetle, the basil and tomatos are the only things left in the veggie garden. There's always next year.

I've been told that the harvest here has been lackluster..... (I was hoping for some to go with grilled bread rubbed with garlic and olive oil - currently a staple in my kitchen.) Not that I'm usually tuned in with the local harvest, but I've been too busy this summer to pay any attention.

Lis,
The zebra tomatoes get soft and sort of transluscent when they ripen

I made a yummy salad a couple of weeks ago. It went something like sliced tomatoes, thinly sliced red onions, top with minced fresh parsley and basil. Drizzle with good quality extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar, top the salad with freshly ground pepper. I went to an upscale restaurant a week later and they had an identical salad but they added gorgonzola and toasted pine nuts. I love fresh produce.

-Mimi

I need to get more creative with my tomato eating and cooking. It's sad that at this time of year with all the great produce I don't feel like cooking. Come December I can't cook enough.

OK Mimi, it was fate. Earlier this week while at the store I felt a need to buy a red onion. It's been staring at me all week, so I made your salad tonight. Pure heaven! Thank you. I'll pick up some Gorgonzola and pine nuts this week and really do it right.

For regular just snacking around, I prefer Romas  all meat, little juice.

I'm green with envy and a bit wet with drool, just remembering what a naturlly ripened tomato just plucked from the plant tastes like! The only way to get these here is plant your own--next month. The "vine ripened" ones offerred locally are picked green and ripened with gas, even in season. Bleck......! Enjoy one for me, while you can. Thanks!

I just can't bring myself to eat a tomato on anything but a hamburger or a BLT. I much prefer the sauce on pizza ;-) or pasta. My other half likes fresh tomatos covered in Buffalo mozzarella.

Has anyone tried morroccan tomato jam? Just curious. (reading a couple of mediterranean cookbooks these days)

I'm not getting enough tomatoes but I did make Julia Child's tomates provencal last week. Simple but simply delicious. As soon as the cherry tomatoes on the deck ripen I just eat them on the spot so there's never any to "make" anything. I just love a good tomato.

Sigh, the world is going to the dogs and we have two food threads going.
Actually, there is a tomato (bush, herb, whatever) bearing a few fruit/berries? at the moment. It is a self sow cherry tomato. And it grew and did its thing through our pathetic winter.
Just about Tomato planting time, perhaps this year, they will bear fruit ant not go all wonky and die. Its either bronze wilt or nematodes?
Have to agree about home grown Tomatoes, they even smell better than the tasteless rocks you buy at the shops.

We are at war, we tend to forget that unless a loved one is over there/somewhere fighting for those of us back home. Not a fan of war, myself, a topic of some good arguments around here;-)

I'm stuffing tomatoes with all kinds of chicken salad this summer, also broiling w/parmesan, I grew 'Big Boys' this summer, with the drought they were just Medium Boys.

Komi, no, but I wonder....I have had tomato "butter" and there are various chutney's and other tomato relishes....I'll have to look it up as ....yah, I have a serious case of far too many tomatoes....I'm waiting for a rash to break out here because we're eating so much tomato based stuff....

Lisa, i'l be good and only talk about food. What about sun dried tomatoes in olive oil. Yum.

Never thought about what to do with the surplus because in the past i had no trouble giving them away.

Wonder why the bought ones are rocks??? always thought it was the variety used but perhaps it is the growing method.

Komi, I do have a recipe for Djej Matisha Mesla (Chicken with sweet tomato jam). I don't know if I've ever made it or not, but it looks good. What the heck. This weekend I'll try it.

Shady, isn't Julia just the best? Mastering the Art of French Cooking Vol. 1 was the first cookbook I ever owned and I still use it.

Arthur, good to know you guys suffer from the same store bought insult we do.

It is the variety, but also because they pick and ship them green. There's a whole series of worthless veggies just bred for mass market.

Hmm...the Solanacae are quite popular with the orchidists.. ;)

Now I'm craving thin, crispy fried eggplant topped with cayenne pepper and a little dollup of hummus. After mentioning the hummus, I think I want some dolma as well.

You're right, Kev. But Julia's going back to the library for a while. After my weekend of gourmet gorging I'm going to put all those fabulous creamy sauces on the back burner (figuratively) for a while. Lean meats and veggies is my mantra until I can get back into my suit pants.

WEll, they aren't sun dried Arthur, but I do have a dehydrator I bought this year on eBay just to dry them so I can have them. I was getting a bit ticked at spending over $10 a pound for sun dried tomatoes, particularly when I know I was going to have a plethora of them....

Sliced beefsteak tomatos...drizzeled with olive oil, freshly ground black pepper, sea salt, about 4 fresh basil leaves, and balsamic vinegar....with some nice grainy French mustard if you're of that persuasion....Who needs cheese sauces when you can do that Mark!

I still swear by grilled 1" thick day old bread, rubbed with garlic and a slice of tomato, and maybe a bit of olive oil.

but avocado tomato and cilantro salad is also a fave.

(totally OT: I want a basket of those deepfried chinese sticky rice football-shaped dumpling things that you can get at dim sum)

You would have to pay me a lot to eat a raw tomato, and even if I tried, I would probably gag and/or throw up. Raw tomato and cauliflower are two things I just can't swallow. It is as if they are deadly poison and my system knows it.

Cooked they're fine. Love me sum marinara! Ole!
-MB

Ooooh, Komi, I had this wonderful sticky rice and something lotusy at a dim sum in DC and I've been thinking about it ever since.

And there was a great Chinese restaurant in West Hartford where I had the most exquisite garlic eggplant....of course the person sitting next to me was munching on a chicken's foot.....

Here in SW Ohio I can't get good pizza much less good Chinese....although the local take out does have good chow mai fun...they have a "Singapore" one which has lots of curry and is hot and is really really yummy, but I wish it had a tad more veggies....I add some when I remember to make it up ahead.

Then...this last weekend, we went to Applebees....our usual "I don't want to cook" venue. I was looking forward to salmon and a salad...the salad didn't come until I was done with the salmon and the "steamed vegetables" was broccoli which hadn't been shown the steam. While I like crisp and crunchy steamed veggies, these were still cold and sage-blue-green....even the manager was appalled. Wahoo. I got $5.00 off my mean and a new plate of veggies. I HAD intended to have the chocolate meltdown....but passed it up. I thought to have messed up two of the major parts I didn't want to give them the opportunity to mess up the most important part...my chocolate hit.

Komi , A friend gave me a jar of green tomato jam I thought Ick till I tried it , was good .
I like tomatoes with a bite to them on a Blt. or just tomato, lettuce and Mayo.
My tomatoes are about done for the year . Gin

Now green tomatos are another story. I make a mean fried green tomato and an awesome green tomato chutney.

OK Clint, what's your recipe for Fried Green Tomatoes. I made them once and couldn't see what the fuss was all about.

yah, and the recipe for the chutney too! I have a veritable GARDEN full of ripening tomatoes! Spill the beans all! I'll try to get my recipes up too!

Okay. I'll give you my grandmother's secret Southern recipes (I guess I like you guys that much).

INGREDIENTS:
sliced green tomatos
salt and pepper
equal parts flour and cornmeal
equal parts bacon grease and vegetable oil

Slice the tomatoes into 1/4 - 1/2-inch slices. Salt and pepper them to taste. Dip them in the corn meal and flour mixture and fry in grease mixture about 3 minutes or until golden on bottom. Gently turn and fry the other side. Drain on paper towels. For some reason, these taste better when made in an iron skillet. Easy (but I'll tell you, more than half the magic is in 'who makes them')

Green Tomato Chutney

INGREDIENTS:
2 lb green tomatos
2 tart green apples
1 tsp red chili flakes
1 onion, chopped
1/2 cup packed golden raisins (optional)
1 1/4 cups packed brown sugar
1 tbsp grated crystallized ginger
1 cup cider vinegar
1 tbsp yellow mustard seeds

Cut the tomatoes into 1/2" cubes. Peel, core and dice the apples to make two cups. Place all of the ingredients into a medium saucepan and bring to a boil quickly. Boil gently for about 30 minutes or until the chutney has a jam-like thickness, stirring occassionally to prevent sticking. Ladle into sterilized jars.

The chutney sounds kind of weird, but it is really good on roast chicken.

Wow!! Check this out. I guess it's good we're all eating tomatoes right now.
-Mimi

Here is a link that might be useful: Tomatoes - nutritional info

Something awful has happened.

Sunday I went up to visit my parents, we had lunch, we went fishing. It was fun. Mom served fresh tomatoes at lunch and they were delicious!! She sent some home with me and yesterday I blanched and peeled one to eat. I noticed it was soft but I just assumed it was super ripe. It was over-ripe actually. Possibly even a little rotten as I found out after the first bite. After spitting it out I couldn't get the taste out of my mouth. Now I don't even think I could look at another tomato. This is awful!!

sound awful!

I also had delicious tomatoes at lunch yesterday - sooooo much better out here (NoCal) than at home :-(

Shady

You must fight this. Remember, there's only another month or so of good tomatoes for the pickin'. How about this? You need to eat one again, but put something with a stronger flavor on it like lots of basil or feta or something like that. Don't stop eating them whatever you do. The Phal god will get you.

This thread reminds me of an old country song. The chorus was "There's only two things that money can't buy and that's true love and home grown tomatoes"

OK, I just got some romas from a co-irker. Tonight I'll try oven drying them.

You must. It sounds to me like you will be missing out on too many nutrients if you give them up!! lol!

Whew! I'm okay now and safe from the Phal god, I guess. The oven drying is taking longer than I expected but I just went home over lunch and checked on them and tasted one of the small ones. It was like fabulous tomato candy. Then I had a green tiger on my salad for lunch (wasn't especially good) along with a can of V8 which was delicious as always.

Your punishment from the Phal gods. You should find this song if you can..and listen to it whilst your ears bleed:

ARTIST: Guy Clark
TITLE: Homegrown Tomatoes
Lyrics and Chords

There's nothin' in the world that I like better than
Bacon, lettuce and home grown tomatoes
Up in the morning and out in the garden
Pick you a ripe one, don't get a hard 'un
Plant 'em in the springtime eat 'em in the summer
All winter without 'em's a culinary bummer
I forget all about the sweatin' and the diggin'
Every time I go out and pick me a big'un

/ C - / F - / G7 - / C - / :

(Refrain)
Home grown tomatoes, home grown tomatoes
What'd life be without home grown tomatoes
There's only two things that money can't buy
That's true love and home grown tomatoes

You can go out and eat 'em, that's for sure
But there's nothin' a home grown tomato won't cure
You can put 'em in a salad, put 'em in a stew
You can make your own, very own tomato juice
You can eat 'em with eggs, you can eat 'em with gravy
You can eat 'em with beans, pinto or navy
Put em on the side, put em on the middle
Home grown tomatoes on a hot cake griddle

(Refrain)

If I could change this life I lead
You could call me Johnny Tomato Seed
I know what this country needs
It's home grown tomatoes in every yard you see
When I die don't bury me
In a box in a cold dark cemetery
Out in the garden would be much better
Where I could be pushin' up home grown tomatoes

(Refrain twice)

Shady - glad you're back on the tomato wagon.

Clint - where oh where do you find these songs??

Kev,

I didn't think of this song until Chitown brought it up. I remember it from my childhood--at my grandparents house they always had the radio tuned to some twangy, hicky station.