Andrew's ingredient of the month: juicy tomatoes

Finally, it's time to harvest tomatoes! This time of year, tomatoes stand on their own as main ingredients in dishes. Except for greenhouse-grown cherry tomatoes (which are flavourful and produced year-round), now is the only time to buy local vine-ripened tomatoes; and if you're lucky enough to have a vegetable garden, you'll be thinking of ways to use up your harvest. Of course, you can make tomato sauce, salsas and ketchup, but fresh, fully ripe tomatoes are great as the star ingredients of many dishes. Here are just a few recipe ideas from our pages.

First things first: soup
Nothing says fresh like ripe tomatoes in a bowl of gazpacho. This soup spells out generous warm sunshine and love of basic ingredients -- in fact, it describes Spain and her cuisine.Many cooks muck about with gazpacho, but I like to stick as close as possible to the real thing. Armed with your ripest, sweetest tomatoes, your freshest cucumbers and peppers, your most fragrant extra virgin olive oil and our Fresh Gazpacho recipe, you can't go wrong.

When chilly breezes sweep in, turn some of those wonderful "apples of gold", as the Italians call them, into a hot soup. Although warming, the wonderfully simple Tomato Soup with Herbed Fresh Cheese speaks of nothing but fresh harvest.

The basics: sweet and simple pastas
When you have delicious fresh tomatoes, you probably think of pasta -- right? And when tomatoes taste really great, you don't have to add much to your recipe at all. You could try an uncooked fresh tomato sauce or, if you prefer a simple cooked sauce, make Pasta with Tomato Basil Sauce.

Click to continue for more ways to use your fresh, local tomatoes...

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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.

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Dried lima beans don't get the praise they deserve. They're buttery and delicious and pair nicely with tomatoes. Want proof? Try Lima Beans with Tomato and Sage. I must admit that when I make a dish like this, I tend to increase our healthy -- but rather stingy -- 1 tbsp/15 mL of olive oil to at least 3 tbsp/45 mL.

Stuff 'em
Stuffed Tomatoes make a good main or side dish. The luscious tomatoes bake around a well-seasoned stuffing to an almost melting consistency.

Not really recipes
When I was a child, I loved to eat fresh tomatoes best out-of-hand with a sprinkling of salt. It was messy (another plus), thirst-quenching and delicious. As an adult, I usually cut my best home-grown tomatoes into wedges or slices and sprinkle them with a little sea salt and a drizzle of fine olive oil. When I'm craving something more, I'll add a sprinkle of my best sherry vinegar or wine vinegar (not balsamic, as its flavour is too strong for the fruit); some shredded fresh basil or mint can do the trick, too.Another favourite is topping the tomatoes with slivers of anchovies, olive oil and a generous grating of black pepper; I sometimes add a touch of shaved sweet onion.

My parents used to serve black pumpernickel bread topped with tomatoes and anchovies; an unusual -- but successful -- North-meets-South combo.

Tomatoes and cheese
Fresh tomatoes go well with many cheeses, generally ones that aren't too aggressive in flavour or aging. The classic is Caprese Salad; slices of tomato, fresh mozzarella cheese and some basil are drizzled with olive oil (no vinegar) and sprinkled with a little black pepper.

Another Italian cheese, ricotta salata, is often shaved over tomato slices. Fresh Portuguese cheeses and other un-aged cheese also pair well with tomatoes.

Or do as my Greek friends do and take a generous chunk of sheep's milk (or sheep's and goat's milk) feta, surround it with slices or wedges of fantastically ripe tomatoes, anoint both cheese and tomatoes with rich Greek olive oil and sprinkle a handful of olives about the dish. With a crisp Greek white wine and a crusty bread...heaven on earth!

Discover more of Andrew's favourite ingredients in Cook's Corner.

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Andrew Chase is Homemakers Magazine's food editor, the author of The Asian Bistro Cookbook (Robert Rose, 1997), The Blender Bible (Robert Rose, 2005) and co-author of 400 Blender Cocktails: Sensational Alcoholic And Non-alcoholic Cocktail Recipes (Robert Rose, 2006). Subscribe to Homemakers Magazine and don't miss any of Andrew's recipes and menus.

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