All posts tagged: heirloom tomatoes

Heirloom Tomato and Herbed Ricotta and Goat Cheese Tart

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August is playing a trick on us.  It’s usually a million degrees here, but between overcast skies, afternoon thunderstorms and temperatures hovering around 100 degrees, I’ve almost convinced myself that Autumn is right around the corner.  So pervasive was this thought that I actually turned on my oven and made this Heirloom Tomato Tart! I know I’ve been waxing poetic about heirloom tomatoes these last few weeks, but I cannot resist! Tomatoes are just so juicy and sweet and plump this time of year that I cannot help myself. Fresh tomatoes are here and we are stuffing our faces with them every chance we get! Before long, it will be October and all we’ll have are canned tomatoes or at worst, those awful mealy, off-season tomatoes at the grocery store!  So, I hope you’ll bear with me for one more week while I continue to gorge myself with vine-ripened heirloom tomatoes! This tart was inspired by a dear friend and coworker who makes the most amazing comfort foods!  She is the Queen of Cream; the Baroness of Bacon!  Everything she makes is just filled …

Heirloom Tomato and Burrata Caprese Salad and That Time I Broke the Cat.

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DIY and I just don’t get along and I’ll tell you why.  Home improvement projects, on the whole, are NEVER as easy as they look, and sometimes, when you’re me, they can cause a cascade of unfortunate events that just might make you decide that the ugly wallpaper in the bathroom just might be fine for another year. It all started last Saturday morning.  It was that glorious, early morning golden hour, before the cats were awake and meowing, before breakfast needed to be made.  HGTV was on in the background, I was reading the latest issue of Better Homes and Gardens on my iPad and then an article popped up on my Houzz app that gave me 11 (really awesome) reasons to paint my interior doors black!  Do you know Houzz?  Houzz is awesome.  It’s a huge database of Things You Want to Do To Your House But Should Really Call a Contractor for.  “This is a great idea!”, I thought. “This is going to be an easy, low budget update!”  So, with visions swirling …

Roasted Tomato Caprese Salad with Kale Pesto

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I recently purchased “The Sprouted Kitchen” cookbook by Sara Forte and I became a little bit obsessed with this one particular recipe for “Heirloom Tomato Stacks with Bocconcini and Kale Pesto”; so much so, that I’ve made it twice this week!   The original recipe, with its beautiful photograph of mid-summer, juicy heirloom tomatoes nestled on top of a bed of pesto and stacked between layers of fresh mozzarella cheese lured me right in!  I was hooked!  The only problem is…it’s not mid-summer.  Not by a mile.  And you and I both know that February tomatoes leave a lot to be desired–they aren’t very sweet; they are often flavorless at best and mealy at worst.  I’ve learned that slowly roasting tomatoes with a bit of olive oil, a sprinkle of sugar, salt, pepper and garlic totally solves the problem of less-than-flavorful off-season tomatoes, so you can have this salad year-round! The kale pesto is also a stroke of in-season genius, as it’s too early for fresh basil as well!  The kale pesto is a perfect …