Andrew's ingredient of the month: juicy tomatoes

Andrew's ingredient of the month: juicy tomatoes

Catch local tomatoes while you can and feature them in your favourite dishes when they're at their best.
Updated:
2010-07-12 09:43
Published:
2009-09-10 00:00
By 
Andrew Chase, Homemakers Magazine Food editor

Top tomato recipes

Not really lasagna
Every summer, when I'm dealing with an overabundance of tomatoes from my garden, I return to a recipe I developed four years ago. It's layered like a lasagna, uses no-cook noodles and takes minutes to put together before you put it in the oven; Layered Tomato Pasta with Feta Cheese is simply a wonderful expression of everything that's good about tomatoes and feta cheese. Make sure you use a really good feta. You can scatter some black olives in the layers, or replace the oregano with globe or leaf basil leaves.I returned to the idea of a simple-to-put-together, layered, lasagna-like pasta dish that celebrates ripe tomatoes as the core ingredient with Fresh Tomato Lasagna with Ricotta. A popular and convenient supper dish, it's more like a real lasagna in flavour, only much fresher and lighter.

Substantial salads
Want a terrific pasta salad? I'm not a fan of cold pasta, and think if you're making pasta salad, you should never refrigerate it. With Roasted Tomato and Olive Pasta Salad, you roast a tomato sauce and toss it with drained pasta that's just chilled under cold water. It can sit for quite a few hours and still be nice. If you must refrigerate it, please bring it to room temperature before serving.

The recipe calls for cherry tomatoes, but quartered small tomatoes, or large tomatoes cut into chunks will also do well; use 1 to 2 lb/750 g to 1 kg.

Another classic Italian salad, combining tomatoes with grains, is Tomato and Spelt Salad. Spelt (faro in Italian) is a delicious, nutty cousin to wheat. If you can't find spelt grains, use hard wheat kernels instead.

Tomatoes as half of a duo
As good as they are, sometimes tomatoes can shine just as brightly when part of a duo. Our Tomato and Sweet Onion Tart is a good example. This dish makes a lovely and elegant first course or appetizer and you could serve it for lunch with a light green salad.

Zucchini grows like a weed and needs something tasty to pique it up. Tomatoes come to the rescue in Baked Zucchini and Tomatoes, a substantial vegetable main dish.

Click to continue to more tomato recipes...

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