sprinklefingers

ah, summer. don’t tomatoes taste just like summer? they do.

mark bittman has some delicious ideas for heirloom tomatoes. makes me want to run to the farmer’s market right this minute.

first up, bittman’s take on summer tomatoes with more than just salt, pepper and a drizzle of olive oil.

next up, an amazing interactive display of delicious tomato recipes. so pretty i just want to eat it up.

hi everyone!

oh. my. goodness! have i ever missed you.

remember that new bakery i was working on opening? well. good news! it’s open. we opened a week and two days ago, and i’m just now (finally) adjusting to my new schedule, my new home life and 12-14 hour work days.

overall it’s been fun. really fun. i’m working with great people. we’re creating delicious treats. and while cooking all day makes dinner prep feel a bit less like fun and more like work, i can’t imagine doing anything else right now.

one of my favorite items on our new menu? brioche tarts. one of my favorite toppings for a brioche tart? olive oil marinated tomatoes.

i arrived at the ‘recipe’ for the tomatoes the hard way: we ordered cherry tomatoes from a local produce purveyor. i didn’t anticipate that we’d get as many as we did. the only thing i could think to do with them all was preserve them in olive oil. with garlic. and herbs. and balsamic vinegar. can you say delicious? i sure can!

the best part of all of this is that i just so happened to have on hand some smoked olive oil. remember that sausage making class i attended a while back? at that class i met the nicest guy - who (as luck would have it) owns a smokehouse. since our meeting at the sausage class we have been experimenting with various components of my recipes - smoking things like flour and brown sugar (over alder wood!) to produce some incredible results. on one of his last smoked flour deliveries he also dropped off some smoked olive oil, and into the tomatoes it went!

you can produce delicious tomatoes without the smoked olive oil, certainly. but if you happen upon a bottle of it, i suggest you snatch it up! even a drizzle will make you swoon…honest!

olive oil marinated cherry tomatoes
makes 4+ pints

you need:

• 4 pints cherry tomatoes, washed and halved
• 2 cups best quality olive oil (smoked if you can get it)
• 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
• 2 t kosher salt
• 2 t pepper
• 2 t dried thyme
• 1 small bulb garlic, all cloves smashed and peeled, yet left as intact as possible
• lidded container that has room for the tomatoes but will also fit in your refrigerator

make the tomatoes:

1. in a bowl, whisk together the oil, vinegar, salt, pepper and thyme.
2. place a layer of tomatoes into the lidded container then drop in a few cloves of garlic. pour a bit of the oil mixture over the top. continue layering the tomatoes, garlic and oil until you’ve used all of everything up.
3. place the lid on the container and store it in the fridge. the oil may harden, and that’s okay. it will melt into deliciousness in no time at room temperature.

now that you’ve got olive oil marinated tomatoes, you need something to do with them.
here are some ideas for your consideration:

• put them on pizza
• bake them into a tart
• mix them into eggs - scrambled? fritatta? your choice!
• use them as a salad topping
• make delicious pasta!
• mash them into a paste and use as a party spread - bruschetta anyone?

look! here are my tomatoes adorning a tart!

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it’s great to be back. see you tomorrow.

try as i might to persuade him otherwise, my kid still loves ketchup. thankfully he only eats it on the foodstuffs that are obvious partners for ketchup, but still. it’s tough for a ketchup-shunning mother to accept her son’s ketchup-loving ways.

so, naturally, i set about making my own version of ketchup that he’d eat and i’d feel even better about serving him.

and, with all the tomatoes on the horizon (summer!) this ketchup is an excellent way to use up some of the bounty of your garden (or frequent trips to the farmer’s market.)

homemade tomato ketchup - makes 3 cups

you need:

• 1 shallot, chopped fine
• chunk of yellow onion equal in size to the shallot, chopped fine
• 1/2 sweet red pepper, chopped fine
• 2 t baking spice - or a combination of cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg - any spice you’d bake with (although if you choose cloves, go easy! they are strong in flavor and will completely take over the flavor profile of your ketchup.)
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 t black peppercorns
• 2/3 cup apple cider vinegar
• 2/3 cup golden brown sugar (light brown)
• 2-28 oz. cans whole tomatoes in juice (preferably peeled)*

make ketchup:

1. add some neutral oil to a soup pot set over medium heat. when the oil is ready, lower the heat and add the shallot & onion and saute for 8-10 minutes. you do not want them to turn golden, you just want them to soften & cook. 
2. add the red pepper to the shallot & onion and continue to cook.
3. once the pepper has softened, add your baking spices and let cook for 3 minutes while stirring.
4. wrap the bay leaves & peppercorns up in a bit of cheesecloth, tie with kitchen twine and put in pot.
5. add the vinegar & the brown sugar and stir to combine.
6. add both cans of tomatoes, stir to combine with everything else in the pot.
7. using you immersion blender, blend everything together completely. make sure to break down all of the tomatoes, bits of onion, etc. once you think you’ve blended enough, blend a bit more. the more you blend, the smoother the consistency.
8. once everything in the pot has been blended together, set the heat so that the mixture will come to a boil.
9. once you’ve reached a boil, lower heat so that the ketchup will simmer. allow it to simmer, stirring occasionally, for 1.5 hours.

ketchup will keep for a month or so in the fridge. alternatively you can freeze it in freezer-safe jars OR go the extra step of canning it. but, this yields an amount not really worth hauling out the canner for - that’s why i suggest keeping it in the fridge and coming up with all sorts of ideas for using it!



note: if you have a kid who’s used to heinz ketchup, this homemade ketchup might be a tough sell. if you plan to switch over exclusively to homemade ketchup, you may want to start out by mixing equal parts of your old ketchup with the homemade stuff - then gradually reducing the amount of old ketchup until your kid is used to it. or, do what i did and just tell your kid that all the ketchup in the whole world changed overnight, and this homemade ketchup is what it changed to. or some desperate story like that when all you really want him to do is eat his flippin’ dinner.

*i came up with this recipe when tomatoes were not in season, so i used canned tomatoes. when summer hits and tomatoes are ripe, definitely use fresh tomatoes - approximately 4 lbs - in this recipe. to remove the skins: boil a pot of water. using a sharp knife, score an X into the underside of each tomato. drop the tomatoes into the boiling water for under a minute. fish out, allow to cool enough so you can touch it and then peel - starting with the X you made. if the peel is stubborn, plop the tomato back into the water for a few seconds.