Food

3 tomato recipes for summer

July 15, 2013

I don’t know about you guys, but in this summer heat, I have trouble making proper meals. Anything that requires a hot stove top — or worse — a long bake time in the oven, is just out of the question on these sweltering days. More days than not, you can find me with a piece of toast, a swipe of pesto, cubed mozzarella and sliced tomatoes fresh from the farmer’s market. The summer tomatoes have been delicious, and I think they figure into 5 out of the 7 days of my week. (Sorry, bell pepper. You will be missed.)

I recently made this one-pot pasta with cherry tomatoes but didn’t like the idea of nuking something that’s so amazing when eaten fresh. So I thought I’d collect a few recipes — in the vein of this avocado post — to share with you some easy and tasty ways to make use of summer’s greatest bounty. Specials thanks to our new balcony basil plant. I couldn’t have done it without you.

Peach + tomato + mozzarella. Could there be a more divine summer combination? Bonus points for the minimal cooking time; besides baking the baguette, these crostinis are more about assembly than cooking. The recipe called for balsamic, but since I’m the one person in the world that hates balsalmic, I used extra olive oil and black pepper instead.

I’m pretty sure this is the ideal BBQ accompaniment. After heavy burgers and hot dogs, this tomato and crouton salad is light, fresh and juicy. That, and I love the contrast of crunchy bread and squishy halved tomatoes.

The peach and tomato crostinis were my favorite of the three, but this Mediterranean baked feta wins the Most Fun award. It’s like a party dip but with more interesting flavors and that salty, tangy delight known as feta cheese. (We ate ours with multi-grain pita chips.) True, the whole dish gets baked but for only 15 minutes — just enough time for the feta to soften and the onions to caramelize a bit. We were out of parsley and dried oregano, so I used slivered basil and a dash of Trader Joe’s 21 Seasoning Salute instead. Love this one for a dinner party appetizer. It looks really impressive but is supremely easy to make.

How are you using tomatoes this summer? Do share!

11 thoughts on “3 tomato recipes for summer

  1. shilpa

    love that feta and tomatoes!! summer tomatoes are the best on pizza and salads. my newest thing is lavash bread from TJs wrapped around smoked salmon, persian cucumbers, cream cheese, sprouts, and tomatoes…

    Reply
  2. Joe Morrison

    I plan to make this as an app tomorrow, thanks for the recipe! We had something similar at a restaurant in Kennebunkport Maine and loved it. I made some fresh focaccia to spread it on. Thanks again!

    Reply
    1. Archana Post author

      Hi Tracy, the words “this Mediterranean baked feta” are clickable—you can see they’re a different color than the rest of the text—and will send you straight to the recipe. Thanks.

      Reply
  3. Raine

    I too tried to locate and click on anything to get the recipes. Can’t find anything. ANd. the link that is supposed to be coloured isn’t. Kinda depressing.

    Reply
    1. Archana Post author

      Hi Raine, In a recent blog post I mentioned that I have a new blog template and layout with a few tweaks that still need to be made. Colored clickable links is one of them. I’m working on it! You can click on “these crostinis,” “tomato and crouton salad,” and “this Mediterranean baked feta” to find the recipes. They are linked.

      Reply

Leave a Reply to Archana Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

* Copy This Password *

* Type Or Paste Password Here *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>