Cooking With This Week's Box
Italian Garlic:
Red & Yellow Onions:
Green Beans:
Sweet Corn:
Red Grape, Golden
Grape or Chocolate Sprinkles Tomatoes:
Red or Orange
Italian Frying Peppers:
Jalapeño Pepper:
Variety of Tomatoes:
Brown Butter Tomatoes (See Below)
Mathilde’s Tomato Tart (See Below)
Red Seedless or
Micro Seeded Watermelon:
Purple, Yellow or
White Cauliflower or Broccoli:
Red Prairie or Red-Gold
Potatoes:
Hello Everyone!
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| Tomato and Roasted Garlic Pie photo by Laura Murray for epicurious.com |
This week we’re talking tomatoes! There are so many things you can do with
tomatoes, and sometimes less is more!
This week I’ve included a simple recipe for Brown Butter Tomatoes (See Below).
I love pretty much anything with brown butter, which is why this recipe
caught my attention! Serve these with
scrambled eggs and it’s a meal! I also
included a recipe that has been circulating in our Facebook Group. Mathilde’s
Tomato Tart (See Below) is originally from smittenkitchen.com. It’s a
simple recipe, but best made when tomatoes are in the peak of their
season! If that tart doesn’t fit your
fancy, perhaps you’d prefer this Tomato and Roasted Garlic Pie!
Peppers are also moving into their peak season alongside
tomatoes. There’s one jalapeño tucked
away in your box this week, but it’s a big one!
Use it to make Jalapeño Lemonade or Jalapeño Popper Dip. On the sweet side of things, I included a few
of my favorite pepper recipes from past years including Sweet Pepper
& Cheddar Clafoutis and Red Pepper, Lentil & Tomato Salad.
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| Jalapeño Lemonade photo from sweetcayenne.com |
We’re nearing the end of our sweet corn and green bean
season, but it looks like we’ll have corn at least one more week and maybe
another bag of beans. Watermelon harvest
is starting to slow down, but it’s not done yet! We’re pretty much done picking melons now,
which may leave you wondering “Just what will they put in my CSA box if all
these things are ending?!” Don’t worry,
we have more things waiting in the cue including Green Top Celeriac and
Leeks! Over the next month we’re going
to experience that overlap between summer and fall. Sweet potatoes will be coming in later this
month along with winter squash. It truly
is a bountiful part of the season and one to celebrate!---Andrea
Vegetable Feature: Tomatoes
By: Chef Andrea Yoder
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| Left to right from top left corner: Japanese Pink, Marsalato, Dark Star and Mai Tai Tomatoes |
While this isn’t the first week you’re receiving tomatoes, we thought it would be an appropriate week to bring this summer favorite to the forefront and give it a little more attention! This week we transitioned from picking tomatoes from our first crop and started harvesting from our second field. We hope to have several more weeks of tomato harvest, but as with everything in farming, it depends on the weather!
Variety Selection: Choosing tomato varieties is no small deal and it can easily become overwhelming when sifting through hundreds of possibilities! We try to strike a balance between tomatoes that are interesting, delicious and able to travel in a CSA box, but also ones that have good yields and disease resistance. We do our best to keep our fields healthy and productive, but in hot, humid and rainy years disease can quickly take hold of a crop and result in a rapid end to the season. This is also why we plant 2 crops in hopes of extending our season. This year we grew four varieties of small tomatoes, three romas, and fifteen other varieties including gold and red slicers, Japanese pink and a few that fit into our category of “black” tomatoes.
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| Marsalato Tomato |
Many people look to heirloom varieties for the best flavor. Unfortunately, many lack the disease resistance and yields we need. In more recent years seed breeders have developed a class of tomatoes they are calling “hybrid heirlooms,” or “heritage” tomatoes. I reached out to Rebecca Morse who is our seed rep with Osborne Seed in Washington. She visited our farm earlier this summer and was a wealth of information about tomatoes! Here’s what she had to say about these ‘Hybrid Heirlooms:’ “Consumers love the look and flavor of heirloom tomatoes, but these old varieties rarely have any disease resistance, often produce only a couple fruit per plant, and don’t hold up to handling. Breeding companies are working on creating these new hybrid varieties to have the look and flavor of the heirlooms that people want, and the comprehensive disease package and commercial productivity that growers need. We have been seeing more gorgeous colors, stripes, sizes, and shapes in development, so expect to see new commercial introductions every year!”
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| Mai Tai Tomato |
So what is “Good Tomato Flavor?” Well, that’s up to each person to a certain extent, but in general it’s a balance of acidity and sweetness. As Rebecca says “I think that tasty tomatoes have a balance of acid and sugar. Without the acid, they don’t taste as sweet. Without enough sugars, they taste bland.” You may also notice flavor of tomatoes is enhanced when you serve them with just a bit of salt or vinegar, both of which can wake up the taste buds and help to bring the sweetness or acidity to the forefront.
Preparation & Use: Tomatoes are delicious eaten both raw and cooked. Variety can be a factor in deciding which tomatoes are better eaten raw versus those whose flavor and characteristics may be enhanced with cooking. Some varieties are more “fleshy,” meaning there is more flesh and less juice. These tomatoes are often better choices for cooking down to make sauce and soup as they result in a thicker finished product. If you’re serving tomatoes raw, aesthetics may come into play as well.
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| Dark Star Tomato |
Tomatoes are also a popular selection to preserve for use year round and there are a variety of ways you can preserve them. You could do something such as tomato jam or make salsa and can it. Of course you can also can tomato juice, diced tomatoes or make tomato sauce and can or freeze that as well. I often don’t have a lot of time during tomato season for complicated preservation, so I tend to go the route of either freezing tomatoes whole or freezing tomato puree. If you want to freeze tomatoes whole, simply wash them and cut out the core. Pop them into a freezer bag and put them in the freezer. When you thaw them, they will collapse and be juicy, but that makes them perfect for using in soups, chili, sauces, etc. You can choose to either pull the skins off before you use them or I usually just blend them into the sauce. For my quick method frozen sauce, I just chop up any extra tomatoes I have, skins and all, and cook them down on the stovetop in a wide pan. Once they have cooked down, I cool them and puree them in the blender. Pour the puree into freezer bags and lay them flat to freeze into “pillows.” In the winter, when I have more time, I pull out the puree and turn it into spaghetti sauce, etc.
Storage: The ideal storage temperature for tomatoes is about 50-55°F. If held at temperatures less than this for extended periods of time, tomatoes will suffer chill injury that affects the texture of the skin and flesh as well as robbing the tomato of its flavor. You may receive some tomatoes that are still a little on the green side. It’s best to ripen these on your kitchen counter at room temperature and eat them or preserve them as soon as they are ready. We do not recommend storing tomatoes in the refrigerator for more than a few days at most.
Mathilde's Tomato Tart
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| photo from smittenkitchen.com |
Yield: 8 servings
For the crust (pâte brisée):
1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
½ tsp granulated sugar
½ tsp coarse or kosher salt
½ cup cold unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 large egg
1 Tbsp water
For the filling:
3 large very ripe tomatoes, sliced crosswise ¼-inch thick (about 1.5 pounds)
Coarse or kosher salt
1 small garlic clove
1 cup basil leaves, loosely packed
2 cups parsley leaves, loosely packed
2 Tbsp olive oil, plus more for brushing
1 Tbsp smooth Dijon mustard (double it if you like mustard; skip if you don’t)
2 oz hard cheese, thinly sliced of coarsely grated (provolone, gruyere, cheddar, etc)
Freshly ground black pepper
- Make the dough: Place flour, sugar, salt, and butter in a food processor. Pulse until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add egg and water to the food processor, pulsing to incorporate. Pulse until dough comes together. Turn out dough onto a sheet of parchment and shape into a disk. Place another sheet of parchment on top and roll out to an 11-inch disk. Slide onto a plate or tray and freeze for 10 minutes, until firm but not so hard that it will crack when bent. Line a 9.5-inch tart pan, preferably one with a removable bottom, with the dough. (A pie dish or cake pan lined with parchment could work as well, just keep the sides 1-inch high.) Trim excess dough (reserve in the fridge for patching) and prick the bottom with a fork. Freeze for 20 minutes, until solid.
- Bake shell: Preheat the oven to 375°F with rack in center. Place the tart pan on a rimmed baking sheet. Weigh the crust down with parchment paper and pie weights, dried beans, or rice (that you don’t plan on using for anything else). Bake crust for 20 minutes. Remove parchment and weights. If there are any cracks or breaks, you can patch with the remaining dough. Bake for 5 minutes more. Remove from oven and let cool.
- Make the filling: Meanwhile, place tomato slices on a rimmed baking sheet and lightly sprinkle with salt.
- Combine garlic, parsley, basil, and ½ tsp salt in a food processor. Pulse until finely chopped. Add olive oil and pulse until a spreadable paste forms. You might need to scrape down the sides of the food processor a few times. If making the herb mixture in advance, store in the refrigerator with plastic wrap pressed against its surface.
- Blot tomatoes with paper towels to remove excess liquid.
- Using a small spoon or offset spatula, spread Dijon mustard evenly on the bottom of the crust. Evenly distribute cheese on top. Dollop with herb mixture and gently spread to cover in a thin layer. Top with tomatoes, overlapping. Cut smaller pieces of tomatoes to fill gaps. The tomatoes shrink while roasting, so keep them sung and the tart pan full. Lightly brush tomatoes with olive oil and sprinkle with freshly ground pepper.
- Bake the tart until tomatoes are softened and the crust is golden, about 50 minutes and up to 1 hour. The tomatoes should be deeply roasted. Allow to cool slightly then serve warm or at room temperature.
NOTE: You can make the dough a few days in advance and refrigerate. You can also bake the crust one day and make and bake the filling another, as I did. Leave at room temperature; no need to wrap. Leftovers of the finished tart keep in the fridge for 4 to 5 days.
This recipe was recommended by a member in our Facebook group. Several other members tried the recipe and have given positive reviews, so we thought it was one worth sharing with everyone! You can view this recipe with the full commentary at SmittenKitchen.com.
Brown Butter Tomatoes
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| photo by Joseph Deleo for food52.com |
Yield: 4 servings as an appetizer, 2 servings as a light
lunch
2 large or 3 small ripe beefsteak tomatoes
6 Tbsp unsalted butter
Flaky sea salt, like Maldon
Coarsely ground black pepper
Baguette or other country bread, for mopping up the butter
- Core the tomatoes and slice them ⅓ in thick. Divide the tomato slices among 4 plates, overlapping the slices just a little.
- Place the butter in a small heavy-bottomed saucepan and set over medium low heat. Let the butter melt completely. It will begin bubbling. Let the butter simmer away, cooking off its water, until it begins to smell nutty and brown. Swirl the pan every 30 seconds or so. When the butter turns the color of a hazelnut, remove it from the heat. Use a soup spoon to ladle it over the tomatoes. They’ll sizzle! You want to dress the tomatoes with the butter as if you were pouring ganache over a cake—be generous!
- Season the tomatoes with salt and pepper, then rush the plates to the table so everyone can taste the tomatoes while the butter is hot! Mop up the butter and tomato juices with good bread. Toast to summer!
Recipe by Amanda Hesser for Food52.com.
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