Three Ways With Summer Tomatoes

My garden is going B.O.N.K.E.R.S.  Especially the tomatoes.  I truly don’t take any credit for it.  I plant the garden in late spring.  I am quite enthusiastic about nurturing the garden in early summer when the weather is beautiful.  And then, when the heat cranks up and we all hibernate inside with the A/C, I occasionally stumble into the humidity and am always stunned by the garden.

Sometimes it’s one big heap o’ death and other times there’s a bounty of produce.  This year, I’ve been pleasantly surprised. I guess the high heat and intense rains have done my garden good.  Lucky me.

Now that I’m harvesting tomatoes daily by the pound, I figured I need to find recipes that use a heck of a lot of tomatoes.  Can’t have them going bad on me with all of that hard work Mother Nature put in to make them!

Here are three recipes to use those tomatoes in this summer:

Fresh Tomato Sauce  
The best thing about this recipe?  It uses 4 POUNDS of tomatoes at once.  Seriously, I could make this every other day, at the rate my garden is going at!  This recipe is adapted from Real Simple.

Ingredients:
4 lbs. of tomatoes, coarsely chopped (in a food processor)
2 tb. olive oil
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 1/2 tablespoons of salt
Pinch of red pepper flakes
1/4 to 1/2 cup of sliced basil

Heat olive oil over medium high heat and saute garlic for 1 minute.  Add tomatoes and their juices, salt and pepper into the garlic.  Bring to a simmer and continue to cook for 45-50 minutes.  Toss in basil and one pound of cooked pasta.  Stir and serve!

Summer Salsa: The easiest appetizer you’ll ever make!  Fill up your food processor with tomatoes (whole cherry tomatoes are fine, chop larger ones), coarsely chop one jalapeno (de-veined and remove seeds if you want to make it less hot).  Add a heavy splash of lime juice and the secret ingredient: white balsamic vinegar.  Season with salt and pepper.  Pulse in the food processor to reach your desired consistency.  Serve immediately, or freeze until later (thawing in the fridge… not the microwave!).

A REAL Garden Salad:  The simplest of all of these tomato recipes, and quite possibly my favorite.  Thinly slice tomatoes (with a serrated knife) and other veggies (for this one I used lemon cucumbers from the garden).  Top with fresh herbs like basil.  Drizzle with a nice balsamic vinegar and olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper!  It’s pretty darn pretty, don’t you agree?

Picture and Recipe from Southern Living

Lookin’ for a great tomato pie recipe?  Here’s one of my faves from Southern Living.  I haven’t gotten a chance to make it yet this year, but I plan to soon!  There’s nothing more perfect on a warm southern night than a nice slice of tomato pie!