August 2, 2020
Tomato Days!
By Linda Dansbury

Tomato days are here and that is so, so exciting! They are so delicious that I don't do too much with them. I know a lot of people do their Caprese (aka tomato and mozzarella) salads with either balsamic vinegar or even a balsamic glaze, but I simply dress the tomatoes with a drizzle of good olive oil, salt, pepper and basil - the flavors are just perfect! We alternate this with bruschetta - again, keeping it simple so the tomatoes are what shines. Here is a bit of how we enjoyed the harvest - please share what you are doing with your harvest by emailing me at lindadansbury@comcast.net and put Anchor Run in the subject line so that I see your email.

Tomatoes, garlic, onion or scallion, basil, peppers - I love making the tomato salad I grew up eating when garden tomatoes were in season. Peel the tomatoes and cut into bite sized chunks, chop peppers into small bites, slice onion or scallion thinly, tear or chiffonade basil, and grate a bit of garlic - grating makes the garlic a bit milder than chopping or mincing and you don't want an over-powering flavor. Place everything in a bowl and salt and pepper to taste, add a bit of oregano, then drizzle a little red wine vinegar and olive oil and mix well, but gently because the tomatoes are delicate without their skins. Enjoy - an added treat is to dunk bread into the dressing - oh my! What a delicious treat.

Tomatillos, garlic, hot pepper, papalo (substitute for cilantro; it's in the herb garden) - made the Tomatillo sauce for the Chicken Stew with Tomatillo Sauce with 2 weeks worth of my tomatillos and placed in freezer for use later. I really like having things to pull out of the freezer in the middle of the winter.

Zucchini, cherry tomatoes, basil, garlic - made an uncooked tomato sauce and put over warmed Zoodles - we have 2 recipes on this site - just type tomato sauce into the search bar on the recipe section of this site.

Eggplant, zucchini, onion, greens, garlic, peppers - a blend of hot and sweet - I made the Veggie Fritters recipe sent by fellow member Ashmali Patel. It was a fun and delicious way to use the veggies!

Cucumbers - made Narrow Bridge Farm Refrigerator Pickles - these keep for a couple of weeks in the fridge and require no canning.