BLT Pasta (NY Times)

 A friend gifted me with a bowl of cherry tomatoes and I'd also had a few cherry tomatoes from my deer and bug eaten plats, so I thought it was a good time to make this BLT Pasta recipe from the NYT.  I used rigatoni instead of the "paccheri" pasta called for. Recipe said you couldl also substitute penne, but I don't think it would catch the chunks in the sauce as well.  This version is also halved to feed 2. :-)

BLT Pasta (Adapted from the NYT)

Ingredients:

• 6 oz rigatoni pasta (update: also works fine with penne! 😀)
• 4 ounces bacon, diced into ½-inch pieces (I used Nueske's applewood smoked bacon from the Fresh Market)
  
• 8 oz cherry tomatoes, halved, plus a few more
  
• Diamond Crystal kosher salt  and black pepper
• 2.5 ounces baby arugula (or more!) update 4/6/26 also have used frisee (5oz) or escarole (5oz).
• 1/4 cup grated Pecorino Romano, plus more for serving (I used Parmigiano Reggiano)
  
• Flaky salt, for serving (optional)

Intructions:

1. Cook pasta in salted water until about 1 minute from being completely done.  Drain and reserving 1 cup pasta water.
2. You can start the sauce while the pasta's cooking. In a 5-qt dutch oven or large skillet,  place the bacon cook over medium-low heat until crisp, stirring occasionally to make sure it does not burn, about 8 minutes (sometimes I'll start it with 1/2 cup of water, that allows some of the fat to render and then the bacon can crisp in that fat after the water evaporates). Remove bacon  with a slotted spoon and set aside on a plate lined with paper towels. If there's a lot of fat, you may want to remove all but 1 tbs or so.
   
3. Turn heat to medium and add the tomatoes to the skillet, tossing them to coat in the bacon fat. Season with salt and pepper. As the moisture from the tomatoes releases, scrape any browned bits that have accumulated at the bottom of the pan (add a few tablespoons of the pasta water if you need to) and continue to cook until the tomatoes begin to fall apart, about 5 to 7 minutes more. Add half of the cooked bacon back to the skillet and toss to combine.
4. Increase the heat to medium-high and add the cooked pasta directly to the skillet tossing to coat with the sauce. Add the arugula and and a couple tablespoons of the pasta water, and carefully toss (Here's where the NYT warns "you'll have a very full pan" and why I like to use a dutch oven rather than a skillet for these types of recipes!) until the arugula wilts. 
5. Add the cheese and another 2 tbs pasta water, and toss together until the cheese emulsifies and the pasta is glossy with sauce. If needed, add another 2 tbs  cup pasta water to loosen the sauce. 

 

Some pics:

 

Pretty cherry tomatoes - some sungolds from my plants, and mostly I think Black Cherry tomatoes from my friend:

Cut in half:

 

Finished dish:

 

Provolone tomato sandwiches

 Man, I keep taking pictures of food and not posting them.  So let me try and get something posted - this Smitten Kitchen Fried Provolone and Tomato Sandwich. 

For one serving you need the following:

• Two slices of bread, toasted (I used Pane di Casa from Harris Teeter)
• 1-2 tbs mayonaise
• 4 slices thin sliced provolone (I used Sargento Ultra Thin sliced)
• As much ripe tomato as you like (this one was from the Farm, I think it was a German Johnson, about 1 medium tomato).

Pretty much the recipe is just toast the bread, spread with mayo, top with fried provolone, top with sliced tomato, sprinkle with salt and pepper and you're done.  The tricky bit is that part in italics, the fried provolone.  The first time I tried to make this dish, the fried provolone was a big fail, and I didn't understand what the fuss was about.  But I tried it again this summer, and I think the trick is just to be patient. 

To fry the provolone, heat a non-stick skillet on medium low heat.  I pour 1-2 tsp of olive oil in the pan, and wipe it around with a paper towel. Lay two slightly overlapping slices of provolone in the skillet, it will start to bubble up as it melts and look lacy, especially on the parts where there's only one layer. This is where I've messed up before, I went too fast and the provolone hadn't browned, which helps it hold together.  As it is cooking, I shape it a little bit with the spatula so it will fit on the bread.  Once the underside is browned, you can flip the cheese over if it folds up, don't panic, just unfold it and brown it on the other side:

Then lift it out of the pan and put on your mayonnaise spread bread.  Top with tomato and sprinkle with salt. It's like a crispy/chewy cheesy crouton.

Penne with Prosciutto, Tomatoes and Zucchini

This week the tomatoes continued, but we are now starting to see some summer squash as well.  This weeks' CSA bag had:

• 1 bunch carrots
• 1 lb cucumber
• 3 small peppers
• 2 lbs beets <--- this is a project I need to work on!
• 1 lb zuchinni (I got two small green and one medium yellow)
• 2 jalapeños
• 1/2 lb tiny tomatillos
• 1 bunch cilantro (check out the last post)
• 1 basil plant
• 1 pint cherry tomatoes

I wanted to make dinner last night using items in the bag and in the house, I settled on combining and modifying slightly two different recipes, one called "Penne with Prosciutto, Tomatoes and Zucchini" from a blog called "Jo Cooks" and the other called "Cherry Tomato Pasta With Proscuitto and Asiago" from Cooking Light.  Here's what I used:

Ingredients (serves 2 generously)

• 6 oz penne pasta
• 3 oz proscuitto, roughly chopped (6 slices)
• 1 tbs olive oil
• one onion, chopped
• 5 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
• 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
• 1 medium zucchinni, quartered lengthwise and sliced (I used the two tiny green ones I got)
• 12 oz cherry tomatoes, halved
• kosher salt to taste (about 1/4 tsp)
• ground pepper to taste
• 2 tsp balsamic vinegar
• 1 oz parmesan cheese, grated
• handful fresh basil, chopped

 Instructions:

•  Cook pasta according to package directions, drain and reserve
• Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. 
• Add prosciutto; cook 3 minutes or until crisp. Remove prosciutto from pan, reserving fat. Place crisped proscuitto on a paper towel lined plate to absorb fat.  If there is not at least 2 tsp of fat left in the pan, add 2 tsp olive oil.
• Add onion, sauté 4 minutes until softened
• Add zucchini, garlic, and pepper, cook 1 minute. 
• Add tomatoes and salt; cook 3 minutes.
• Stir in pasta and vinegar; cook 30 seconds. 
• Remove pan from heat; stir in chopped basil
• Divide pasta mixture among 2 bowls; top with prosciutto and sprinkle the parmesan over the two bowls. 
• Sprinkle with additional chopped basil 

This was pretty good, but next time I make it I might replace the proscuitto with sweet Italian sausage.

Some pics!
Line up your ingredients:

Saute those veggies:

Forgot to take pics of adding the tomatoes, but here it is plated up:

Cilantro - do you hate it?

How do you feel about cilantro?  The first time I had it I thought I was licking a bar of soap.  The the next time, I was all "this is yummy!".  Don't know what happened there.  I had exactly the opposite reaction with a Japanese herb called shiso. Liked it then hated it. So while I'm happy to see a bundle of cilantro show up in the CSA the last two weeks, I'm hoping Nick doesn't start growing shiso on the farm!

A few things with cilantro I've made before:

• Thai Basil Pesto
• Esquites (just made these last night!)
• Blackeyed Pea Posole with Collards (good, but good Lord it's way too hot for this right now)
• Tomato, Corn and Avocado Salad
• Enchiladas Verdes
• Salsa Verde
• Zesty Avocado Cilantro Dressing

And here are a couple of new things, one with pics and one without, cuz I was hungry.

Guacamole
Note: this is a starting point, adjust ingredients to your taste
1 large ripe avocado (like the ones in the bag at Costco) or 2 small (like the ones in the tiny bag at HT)
1 handful chopped ripe tomato
1 handful chopped onion
1 handful cilantro. chopped
juice from 1/2 lime
1 serrano or 1/2 jalepeño (if it's one of those monster ones!), finely chopped, or a few dashes of hot sauce such as Tapatio
salt and pepper to taste

 Mash avocado in bowl w/ fork or potato masher.  Add the rest of the ingrdients, stir, taste and adjust salt, pepper and hot sauce to your liking.  Serve w/ tortilla chips on tacos or quesadillas, or, just go at it with a spoon.

Some pics!
Avocado ready to be smashed:

Getting to smashing with my tiny potato masher:

Add the rest of the ingredients:

Mix it up:

Needs moar Tapatío:

Homemade Bacon (who knew?)

My friend Marlene emailed me a couple of weeks ago w/ a link to this NY Times article (along with several others) asking "...want to try homemade bacon?"   I had several pork bellies in the freezer because of Marlene (she thought they were ribs from Ofuskee Farm, but they were bellies) and she also had pork bellies from PTB Farms (who I've mentioned before).  We each made up our own cure, riffing off of the NY Times recipe (I left out the coriander, thyme and fennel because they didn't seem like very "baconlike" ingredients to me) and several others from around the web.  Here's what I used:

Cure:

• 2.5 Tbs kosher salt (Diamond Crystal)
• 1/2 tsp pink salt (note: this is not himalayan pink salt!  It's pink salt w/ sodium nitrite for curing meats!)
• 2 Tbs maple syrup
• 2 Tbs honey
• 2 Tbs cold black coffee
• 2 garlic cloves, smashed (CSA ingredient, so it's legit to have bacon on the blog)
• 1 Tbs black peppercorns, crushed (put them in a ziploc and hit 'em w/ a meat mallet a few times)
• 2-2.5 lbs pork belly (I had 3 tiny bellies, ranging in size about 10-12 oz) 

 Instructions:

1. Place the pork bellies in a Ziploc bag.
2. Mix together the dry cure ingredients, add to bag
3. Add wet cure ingredients, close the bag
4. Massage the bag to coat the bellies with the cure ingredients as best you can
5. Press most of the air out of the bag and place bag in fridge
6. Flip the bag over and massage the cure into the meat 1x day for 7 days
7. After 7 days, remove the bellies from the bag, and rinse the cure off of the meat.  Pat dry with paper towels, and place on a rack in the fridge to dry for 6-24 hours.
8. Since my bellies were so small, I rolled and tied them at this point
9. Smoke over applewood at 200-225°F for 1.5-2 hours until internal temperature is 150°F

Some before pics:
Ready to go into the smoker

Coming out of the smoker (we also had probe thermometers in two of the bellies while smoking so we knew when to pull them).

mmm...bacon

You could slice and eat it just like this, but we pan fried a few slices and then put some on parchment and stuck it in a 400°F oven to bake 8-12 minutes, keeping an eye on it and flipping it about every 3-5 minutes. 

Forgot to take an after pic.  Combined with Marlene's homemade sourdough sandwich bread, these gorgeous tomatoes from the CSA and some smoked corn mayonnaise from Deep Run Roots, it made some damn fine BLT's.  (which would also be damn fine w/ some Hellman's or Duke's and any good white sandwich bread).

What to do with eggplant? Pasta Sauce!

So last year we were inundated with eggplant. I think there was a research project that the farm was doing w/ NC A&T.  This year it's not been so much, but still, the eggplant and tomatoes are in full force right now.  I've definitely figured out a few things to do w/ eggplant which you can find if  you click the "eggplant" label over there -->

But I wanted to try something new, so I searched "eggplant" on https://smittenkitchen.com, and Deb, per usual did not disappoint.  She had many recipes for eggplant, but this recipe for Rigatoni and Eggplant Puree really got my attention, since I had eggplant AND a pint of cherry tomatoes in this weeks (and last week's) CSA.

I made it pretty much as described.  The only big difference was that I only made 6 oz of  pasta (it was just the two of us) and used half the sauce it made, and I only used  4 tbs of oilve oil instead of 6.  I also added 6 of these Turkey Meatballs from Trader Joes, thawed and cut into quarters.  The puree is definitely not photo-worthy, but it was pretty tasty overall!
Some pics!
The ingredients! (full disclosure, the eggplants were from last week)

Getting the roasted veg into the food processor:

This was a little tricky b/c the Al foil I'd put on the baking sheet had a hole and the juices from the veg had welded the foil to the sheet.  It all worked out.

Mixing up the sauce with the rigatoni.  Needed 2-3 scoops of pasta water to loosen it up.

Plated up with a little parm and basil garnish...
Oh, and Rudy was jealous b/c Dudley got featured in the last post, so here he is:

Panzanella

There are a million recipes for this bread and tomato salad, and here's how I do it:

Serving size 1, multiply as needed
Ingredients

• 1-2 good tomatoes, chopped
• salt and pepper 
• 1-1/2 clove garlic, grated or pressed
• good handful fresh basil leaves, chiffonade
• 1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1-2 tsp balsamic or red wine vinegar
• 1-2 thick slices (1-1.5 oz) of good bread, cubed and toasted
• olive oil cooking spray
• 2-3 oz fresh mozzarella, cubed
• 1-2 tsp toasted pine nuts 
• optional: grated parmesan

Directions:

• Put chopped tomatoes and their juices in a bowl, add garlic, and salt and pepper to taste.  Add olive oil and vinegar.  Let sit a few minutes to draw out more juice from the tomatoes.
• Cube the bread, spread on baking sheet, spray lightly with olive oil and toast in toaster oven until golden brown.  Let cool.  
• Add mozzarella and basil to tomato mixture.
• Add toasted bread to tomato mixture, tossing until the bread soaks up all the juices
• Garnish with pine nuts and parmesan (if you remember, I did not in the bowl pictured below)
• eat! 

Slow roasted tomatoes

As I think I've mentioned, we're overrun with tomatoes right now, including a couple of pints of mixed cherry tomatoes:

Deb Perelman at Smitten Kitchen has this recipe for Slow Roasted Tomatoes, which is as delicious as it is simple. It takes 3 hours, but it's hands-off and perfect for a lazy Saturday afternoon while you Netflix and chill:

Deb's pictures are way more gorgeous than mine will ever be, but here's what they looked like coming out of my oven (I subbed a Silpat for the parchment paper.:

Serving suggestions:
1.  Stand in front of the stove and eat them directly off the baking sheet.

(not pictured)

2.  Smash on some toast you rubbed with the roasted garlic, top with fresh mozzarella and basil.

I'm sure you can think of other things to do with them...

Tomato, corn and avocado salad

So, I might have mentioned we've got a thousand tomatoes?  Also, this weekend I might have enthusiastically overbought the first corn of the season (for me anyway), and I had half an avocado kicking around so here you are. 

A pile of cherry tomatoes, some corn, some red onion (also from the CSA!), cilantro, olive oil and lime juice and it's a very nice salad.  Add some chicken chunks and it's a very nice lunch.  Here's the recipe.

Note I did not grill the corn, but used some leftover boiled corn from this weekend.  Still very nice.

Pan con Tomate

We are in high tomato season here at the CSA.  This week's box had a pint of cherry tomatoes and 2 pounds of regular tomatoes.  And, since I also have a friend's CSA because she is out of town, that means I've got 4 pounds of tomatoes!

Obviously that means that there are BLT's, fresh tomato pasta and gazpacho in my future.  I also used one of the tomatoes to make a quick snack that I learned about in Spain, Pan con Tomate.  I think this is supposed to be a tapa, but every morning at the hotel breakfast in Spain there was a bowl of tomato pulp so you could have it for breakfast.  I used this recipe, more or less as written (but with just one tomato and a few slices of bread since it was just me), and forgot to take pics.  One change I made: I used Italian bread from Cheesecakes by Alex (I've explained how good bread comes from a cheesecake place here). 

There's a lot of arguments in the comments about how to make the dish and who it belongs to (it's Catalonian, not Spanish), but I think you can put it together however you want, just make sure you've got great:

• Bread
• Tomatoes
• Olive oil
• Salt
• Garlic 

This week's CSA box and a melon smoothie

I think we're at week 7 or 8?  I've been traveling and last week's box went to my friend Sarah.  We've moved from the onslaught of greens to more summer veggies like tomatoes and cucumbers.   Here's the lineup from this week's box:

• 2 lbs purple potatoes
• 2 lbs tomatoes (one GIANT Cherokee Purple and a slicing tomato)
• 1 small green cabbage
• 3/4 lbs collard greens
• 4 red onions
• 1/2 lb radishes
• galia melon
• 1 lb zuchinni (one tiny, one enormous)
• 2 cucumbers

So far....

• I've already roasted the potatoes (wash well, cube up, toss w/ 1 tbs olive oil, salt, pepper and fresh rosemary and roast at 400°F for about 30-45 min). 
• I sauteed the one of the tiny red onion and the tiny zuchinni (both chopped) and added a little bit of chorizo (< 1 oz) and an egg to make a breakfast taco filling.
• I used one of the cucumbers to make a chicken salad: peeled chopped cucumber, 4 oz leftover chopped chicken, 3 tbs greek yogurt, 1 tbs mayo, 1 tbs chopped fresh tarragon, salt and pepper.  Could have used some lemon juice or some other acid.
• The other cucumber and the tomato went into this gazpacho.

 The galia melon (like a honeydew) I already had peeled and cut up into chunks, and I may put some of those into one of these melon smoothies my friend Ara sent me the picture of and recipe for:

To quote "Very easy to make with cut up melons, ice, and agave in the ninja."  I'm hoping that my non-ninja blender will be able to handle it!  Also I'm assuming the Ranier cherry on top is optional (I love them, I just don't have any!).

Gazpacho!

So last week I had the great privilege to go to Spain with Atlantis Global to learn more about their medical shadowing program for pre-health students.  Short story is that it's awesome and I'll be taking a group of Guilford students to Teruel, Spain to do medical shadowing in the Spring 2020 3-week session.  While I was there, I ate some amazing food, including a couple of delicious bowls of gazpacho.  Which was especially delicious given that the temperature was pushing 100°+ while I was there:

Coming back, I was determined to make this silky smooth, deliciously cool soup.  Turning to the internet for recipes, I found that there are approximately Avogadro's Number of different possible ways to make this soup.  😳  Quickly abandoning the chunky versions (which I'm sure are great, but not what I wanted) as well as Kenji Lopez-Alt's version that required you to freeze all the vegetables and then some other stuff (I just got overwhelmed).  Even his "easy version" seemed too complicated, and also had 1 cup of olive oil in the ingredients!  Eventually I settled on the recipe from Bon Appetit, and I think it came out pretty well!

Ingredients:

Ingredients

½. English hothouse cucumber, peeled, seeded

½ large red bell pepper, stemmed, seeded

2 lb. very ripe red tomatoes, preferably heirloom, cut into ½" wedges, 3 Tbsp. seeds reserved

½ large shallot, chopped

1 garlic clove, finely grated

2 Tbsp. (or more) sherry or red wine vinegar

Flaky sea salt

3 tbsp. olive oil, plus more for drizzling

Method:

Step 1 Cut 2" of the cucumber into ¼" pieces and set aside for serving; coarsely chop remaining cucumber and place in a large bowl. Cut one quarter of the bell pepper into ¼" pieces and set aside for serving; coarsely chop remaining bell pepper and add to bowl with chopped cucumber. Add tomatoes to bowl and toss with shallot, garlic, 2 Tbsp. vinegar, and 1 Tbsp. salt. Let stand 30 minutes at room temperature to let flavors meld.

Step 2 Transfer tomato mixture along with any accumulated juices to a blender. Add 3 Tbsp. oil and purée on medium speed until smooth; season with salt and vinegar, if desired. Strain through a coarse-mesh sieve into a large bowl or pitcher and chill until cool, about 1 hour

With some pics!

First line up your ingredients (tomatoes and cucumbers from this weeks' CSA, including the gianormous Cherokee Purple on the far right that weighed in at 1.25 lbs)

Peeled seeded and chopped the cucumber, cored and chopped the tomatoes (no peeling!), chopped the red bell pepper and shallot and tossed them all in a bowl and grated in the garlic clove.  Season w/ salt and pepper and add sherry vinegar:

Stir it all up:

And let is sit for 30 minutes:

Put all that in a blender along w/ 3 tbs of olive oil and let it rip at "medium" (my blender doesn't have a medium setting so I picked the middle button which said "mix").  Then put the mixture through a coarse sieve into a bowl (this was kind of a pain, but worth it -gets rid of peels and leftover seeds- and you get about 4.5 cups of this:

Let it sit overnight in the fridge to chill, and it is delicious.  You're supposed to serve it w/ chopped tomato, cucumber and a drizzle of olive oil but I haven't gotten to that part yet.  One of our hosts from Atlantis Global, Alexandra said she loves gazpacho but never makes it because they sell it in the grocery store and it's delicious.  I wish we had that here, but for now I can use this as a way to deal with the onslaught of tomatoes and cucumbers that are coming!

Shrimp Succotash Salad

So this is mostly ingredients from the Greensboro Farmer's Curb Market, but they are all seasonal and I did use two items from the CSA!  I made the Shrimp Succotash Salad from p 154 of Deep Run Roots by Vivian Howard, of Chef and the Farmer fame.  It starts with butterbeans that have been cooked according to the method for the Butterbean Burger recipe posted on the PBS website for A Chef's life (it's also on p 153 of DRR).  The rest of the ingredients are:

Salad:
1/2 lb large shrimp (21-25 count), peeled and deveined
1 1/2 cups Stewed Fresh Butterbeans, drained and rinsed of their cooking liquid - I used speckled butter beans from Smith Farms, they cook up brown rather than green)
1 cup fresh corn (I used bicolor from Rudd's Farm)
1/2 cup celery, small diced
1/2 cup picked parsley leaves (oops, just realized I forgot to put those in)
1/2 tsp salt
1 medium tomato, diced (I used a German Johnson from Smith Farms)

Dressing:
3 tbs extra-virgin olive oil (I used 2)
2 tablespoons minced red onion (yay, from the CSA!)
1 garlic clove, grated on a microplane  (also from the CSA)
1 tsp coriander seeds
1 tsp mustard seeds
1/8 tsp red chile flakes
3 tbs red wine vinegar
zest of 1 lemon
2 tbs lemon juice
1 tbs honey (could have been from the CSA, but it wasn't)
1/2 tsp hot sauce

Making the dressing:
In a small sauté pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat, add the onion and cook gentyly for 3 min.  The onion should not brown, only soften.  Stir in garlic, coriander seeds, mustard seeds and chile flakes. Toast for 45 seconds.  Remove from head and transfer to a small bowl.  Whisk in the remaining dressing ingredients and put it aside while you make the rest of the salad.

Making the salad:
Bring a large pot of heavily salted water to a boil.  Slice the shrimp in half lengthwise, and drop them into the boiling water and immediately turn off the head.  Stir the shrimp in the hot water for 30 sec, drain and put in the fridge to cool.

Stir together the butterbeans, shrimp, corn, celery, parsley and slat.  Pour the dressing over the top, stir to mix, and refrigerated, stirring occasionally, for at least 3 hours or, better still, overnight.  Just before serving, stir in the tomato.   Eat cold or at room temp.

A few pics:
Chopped red onion for the dressing:

Cooking the red onion:

Final product:

 Could have used the parsley just to make it a little prettier (as I said, those butterbeans aren't the prettiest when cooked), but it tasted good!  Overnight marinating really helps mellow out the garlic a bit!

Tomato time!

Delayed post - Here's the CSA box from the week of July 21"

So, what have we got?

• 4 oz of honey from the busy, busy bees at Guilford
• 1 lb tomatillos
• 1 pint cherry tomatoes
• 1 lb potatoes
• various peppers
• 2 lbs slicing tomatoes (at least one Cherokee Purple!)
• okra
• one bunch amaranth or callaloo greens
• Bunch basil

So the tomatoes are coming on in a big way.  Tonight I made a tomato salad I love with 1 lb of the slicing tomatoes.  It's from my cooking boyfriend David Lebowitz' blog.  Here's a link.  I usually cut the tomatoes into chunks and add a little sliced basil. Yummy!

We had it with brats from PTB Farm and some Italian sausages from Giacomo's along with some lovely corn from Rudd's Farm (at the Greensboro Farmers Curb Market):

Week 10 and Oven Roasted Tomatoes

I'm pretty sure it's week 10!  Here's this weeks box:

What have we got?

• 1 lb heirloom tomatoes (for me this week that's the giant yellow/red one in the upper right)
• 1 pint cherry tomatoes
• 2 lbs red, white and blue potatoes
• 1 cucumber
• 1/3 lb specialty peppers 
• 3 hot peppers (two serranos and one reddish one)
• 1 lb paste tomatoes
• 1 lb squash/zuchinni
• 1/2 lb okra
• 1 bell pepper
• 2 lbs tomatillos 
• 1 bunch basil

It's starting to be tomato time for the CSA, and while I love tomatoes, I'm kind of picky about which ones I like to eat raw.  I like the Sungold and Black Cherry varieties of cherry tomatoes, and my favorite slicing tomatoes are Cherokee Purples.  Week 9 we got 1.5 lbs of tomatoes that included one I sliced and the rest were these larger "paste" tomatoes that were pretty firm:

My favorite thing to do with these tomatoes is to roast them slowly.  I use this recipe for Oven-Roasted Tomatoes from David Lebovitz's blog (I mentioned earlier it's one of my favorites for recipes).

I crowd my tomatoes a bit more than he does:

Here's what they look like when they come out.

I wrote this part of the post this past Saturday, when I wasn't too hungry for dinner because of lunch at Bites and Pints (yummy!), so had a little bread and tomatoes and wine for dinner:

I toasted some sliced whole wheat baguette (sprayed with a little olive oil)  spread it with a little Goat Lady Dairy plain goat cheese and smashed some roasted tomatoes on top.

These roasted tomatoes freeze very well, and will also keep for several days in the refrigerator.