The Stats

Somehow I’ve managed to hit 5,000 views on this thing.  I’m not sure who reads this besides Jim and a few friends but I guess someone does.  Maybe 5,000 doesn't sound like a lot, but it does to me.  Apparently it has been viewed in 10 different countries with Google being the number 1 referring site, followed by Facebook.  I’m not bragging, I’m just baffled.  I can tell you my most popular recipes are the eggplant meatballs followed by the Vietnamese chicken and, bizarrely, rutabaga ribbons.  Don’t get me wrong, I love rutabaga ribbons, which is why they are here, but it seems like an odd recipe for the top 3.  My least popular posts:  my very first one, which is for mashed sweet potatoes with smoked paprika (it’s delicious), my butterscotch cookie recipe, and my salad dressing recipe.  I am forever making salad dressing.

So, like that rutabaga recipe I’m going to celebrate with something simple.  Jim suggested we have a party with dishes from this blog, but I informed him if we did, we’d have to blog about it, and it’s way too hot outside for a party.  The best part of summer is how simple it is to make a great dinner.  The grill, the produce and all the herbs make summer the most delicious time of the year.  Like most recipes, this salad came in to existence because it’s what we had in the house.

Tomato Salad with Dill, Capers and Lemon Vinaigrette  - Serves 6-8

1 pint grape tomatoes, cut in half

2 tablespoons dill, chopped

1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon capers, drained

sea salt, such as Maldon

Vinaigrette

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons lemon juice

2 teaspoons honey

2 teaspoons dijon mustard

Place the tomatoes in a bowl, toss with the dressing.  Add in the dill and capers, lightly toss, sprinkle with salt and serve.

From Summer with Love

A fresh tomato is just about the best present you can give. Large, ripe and smelling like the yard it came from, homegrown tomatoes are a luxury. They need very little to shine, a sprinkling of salt, maybe a little pepper or a tiny drizzle of olive oil, but that’s about it.

Two summers ago Jim planted a small vegetable garden beside our tiny house. He planted zucchini, squash, various peppers and an okra plant that produced, ironically, a single okra. He also put in five tomato plants of various types (at this point in the story he’s quick to point out someone - me - removed all the plastic identifying placards - just so you know). Jim took the role of gardener very seriously and would spend about an hour everyday after work watering, fertilizing, measuring and admiring his work. Amazingly the squirrels and the birds (and the squatters next door) stayed away and the tomato plants thrived. Jim was very fruitful, extremely so that by the end of August it seemed every lunch consisted of tomato sandwiches, evening appetizers were fried green ones and pasta sauce galore clogged the freezer. By September we couldn’t give enough of them away. I said ‘I know it’s not right, but if I don’t see another tomato until next summer, I’ll be okay’. And I kept my word, for the most part.

This tomato pie has been with me forever, much like the eggplant meatballs or my rosemary salmon. It’s just one of those dishes I do. It is at its best when made at the end of summer with the tomatoes from your yard or someone’s yard and the basil that’s going to seed with big fat leaves. It’s not complicated and the ingredient list might even say ‘duh’ but it never fails to make people happy.

Tomato Pie - Serves 6-8 as a side dish

3-3.5 lbs. tomatoes (approximately 8)

1/2 cup + 2 tbsps. basil torn

8 oz. boccacini cut in half, or a larger mozzarella cubed

3/4 cup parmesan grated

3 tbsps. olive oil

1/2 tsp. garlic powder

salt + pepper

2 sheets pastry for a 9” pie

1 egg

Seed and chop the tomatoes in to 1/2” chunks, dry them on paper towels. Slice the boccacini in half and dry on paper towels as well. You will want to remove as much moisture from the ingredients as possible. Combine the first three ingredients, toss and sprinkle with olive oil, garlic powder, salt and pepper and toss again to coat. Preheat the oven to 350. whisk the egg. Line a pie pan with one sheet of pastry and pour pie filling in, top with remaining pie shell, crimp edges to close, brush top of pie with the egg wash and using a fork prick several times to vent. Place in oven and cook for approximately 45 minutes or until the crust is golden. Cool pie for 20 minutes prior to slicing.

Shut-In

Atlanta received 4” of snow on Sunday and the city is still paralyzed from it. No mail, no bank, no buses, no work and the grocery store, if you can get there, doesn’t have any food. That’s 3 days of nothing. However, it did give me the chance to blog for the first time in months!

Now the reason I have not been blogging is not due to a lack of cooking or creativity; we have been eating all sorts of tasty items this winter: green beans and chestnuts sauteed in duck fat, parsnip ribbons with Nigella seeds, New England clam chowder and a favorite of the kids, Captain Crunch French toast - which we paid for dearly in sugar highs. I have not been blogging due to my lighting situation, so, for a moment let’s ignore that I’m a lighting designer. This is how the blog works: I make dinner, I photograph it outdoors no more than 10x with my Iphone, write a story about it (or use an existing one), pick the best picture and post it. Simply Socialist in approach. Winter creates a problem for outdoor photography and, in spite of an almost perfect color rendering index, our halogen downlights make food look just awful, you can see some examples of the effects on this blog. At this point I could write a 10,000 word essay on the lighting, food, color temperatures, footcandles and color rendering indexes but I’m not going to bore myself or you with that. I just don’t want to post ugly pictures.

So the point is, it snowed and I was able to make lunch and photograph in the daylight. I don’t really have a story for this recipe, it came about one day when Jim and I came home for lunch and Mother Hubbard’s cupboard was bare. Improvisation is the creator of some tasty meals. So hopefully you’ll try it, with a grilled cheese, of course.

Smoky Fire Roasted Tomato Soup (Serves 2-4)

1 - 28 ounce can fire roasted tomatoes

1.5 cups water or vegetable stock

1 medium Spanish onion, diced

1 teaspoon smoked paprika

1/4 teaspoon sugar

a pinch of cayenne

salt and pepper

2 - 3 tablespoons basil, chopped

2 tablespoons olive oil

Heat the oil in a pan and saute the onions until almost translucent, about 10 minutes. Add in salt and pepper and smoked paprika and saute for 1 more minute, add in tomatoes and water, bring to a boil. Add in sugar and simmer for 10 minutes. Puree to desired consistency with an immersion blender or standing blender. Ladle in to bowls and top with the basil.

Notes: Sometimes I puree the whole soup and other times only half of it for a heartier texture.