Fried Green Tomatoes

This is what I had for lunch today.  And there's no way a picture can do it justice (even if it was a good picture).  It's just one of those things that tastes so much better than it looks. These were tomatoes fresh from the garden, mostly green but just barely starting to get a little color.  These were the big yellow heirloom tomatoes, so the color they were starting to get was just a touch of yellow. I looked around at fried green tomato recipes, and they all seem to have milk or buttermilk, and flour.  And I can't really figure out why any of that is necessary - maybe with ordinary tomatoes it is.  I love the crunch of the cornmeal, and I didn't want to add flour to that.  And the tomatoes are so juicy that dipping them in something wet doesn't seem to make any sense.  All I did here was slice, and dip in cornmeal that had been seasoned with a little salt, garlic powder and onion powder.  I think one important part of what made these so good was the quality of the corn meal.  I use Bob's Red Mill Organic Cornmeal, Medium.  This is cornmeal that actually tastes like corn, and it has some texture to it.  Then I fried them in a little olive oil until golden, and I ate them with just a few drops of Tabasco.  Even I was surprised at how good these were - sweet and tangy and crunchy and buttery.  I ate three whole tomatoes.  yes - three.  I cooked two, and loved it so much that I went back and did another tomato.

The Freshest Tomato Sauce - or Tomato Soup

This is another one of those unbelievably simple things, that just oozes amazing flavor.   I think I keep repeating myself - but I really am going to miss when these yummy summer tomatoes are gone.  This was the first summer that I've had a garden since before my babies were born, and I have just been loving the fresh produce - but especially the tomatoes.

This is the simplest of sauces - quick, easy, and so delicious.  I used mostly small roma tomatoes, plus a few handfuls of cherry tomatoes.  Since they were so small and tender, I just dumped them in the Vitamix whole, along with a couple cloves of garlic, a bunch of fresh basil leaves, a little salt and a little olive oil.  Turn it on, and blend 'til smooth.  No need to seed or peel or do anything, this blender takes it all down to nothing.  Then I put that in a pot on the stove and simmered it for a bit.

We had this over pasta as a sauce, and I had it as a bowl of soup with some leftover croutons from the day before's tomato bread salad.    On the side of the soup was a wrap, with my eggplant dip and squash dip, tomatoes, basil and greens - one of the best lunches ever.  And I have a couple jars saved in the freezer!

Tomato & Barley Salad

This was a quick lunch salad I just threw together. Cooked barley, olive oil, tomatoes, basil, garlic, salt and pepper. Simple and yummy. And the barley makes it really filling.