Almost Tomato Time

By Sandy Hu
A new video for Video Friday

As the weather warms up and the days grow longer, I begin to anticipate tomato season. I’ll revel in the first good tomatoes, sweet and flavorful, drizzled with a good olive oil and a sprinkling of sea salt. But as the season progresses, we’ll all be challenged to be more inventive.

Some tomato recipes call for peeling and seeding the tomatoes. Tomato skin can have a plastic mouthfeel so it’s luxurious to eat it when the skin is removed and all you get is the juicy flesh. Seeding rids the tomato of the pesky seeds and when you take out the seed sacs, you also eliminate the extra moisture, ensuring that your tomato dish will not be watery.

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A Return to Chase’s

By Lori Powell

As promised per my last post, I am blogging again about Chase’s Daily Restaurant in Belfast, Maine. Since corn, green beans (my own are almost done) and tomatoes are still so plentiful, I thought I would share my version of a salad I had at Chase’s that used those classic summer ingredients.

What’s nice about this recipe is that minimal cooking is required; the only thing that is cooked is the fresh green beans, which are just given a good blanching.

Blanching is the process of cooking something quickly in boiling salted water until crisp-tender, draining immediately and then refreshing in a bowl of cold water that includes a few ice cubes. This not only stops the vegetables from cooking but also helps to retain their vibrant color and crisp texture – the trick is to not undercook or overcook.

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Too Many Tomatoes (and Other Produce)

By Sandy Hu

The start and end of a season always brings out the greed in me. At the start of the season, I overbuy produce because I’m so happy to see all the new offerings. At the end of the season, I tend to buy more than I need because I know that what’s in the market today will be gone tomorrow.

So it was in this state of mind that Steve and I bought too much of everything at the Alemany Farmers’ Market last week – figs, white nectarines, tomatoes, basil and more.

I always inventory everything before I put my produce away. I hate waste and I feel I can manage my inventory better if I make a list. But having overbought, I was beginning to lose control and it was time for triage.

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Tomato Season’s BLT

By Katie Barreira

Around this time last summer, I got a sandwich that blew my mind. I always love a BLT for its addictive combination of meaty bacon, crisp lettuce and sweet-tart tomato. But this particular BLT was all about the “T;” 3/4-inch-thick slices of sun-ripened tomato were the meat of this stunning sammy. This weekend, I returned to see if the best-ever TBL (Tomato, Bacon and Lettuce) was back in season; I was in luck.

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Assemble and Serve Supper

By Katie Barreira

Ah, August. Time for those dripping hand-held fruits – peaches, nectarines and yes, tomatoes. Ingredients this fresh are best left unadulterated and that’s great, because I sure don’t feel like cooking. Hmmm, it’s as if Mother Nature knew exactly what I needed....

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