No matter how you say it, tomatoes are certainly available throughout the year, but there is nothing like the thrill of walking through the summer farmer’s markets and seeing the wave of red, yellow, and orange tomatoes on display. It can only mean one thing: the summer crops of tomatoes are ready!  It is a quite a remarkable sight, and something that I have looked forward to each summer for decades!  

I love every variety…beefsteak, Better Boy, cherry, heirloom, grape, Roma, brandy wine. The list is endless. I have never met a tomato that I did not like.  We have even had success growing our own varieties.  There is nothing quite like planting  the tiny seedlings in spring, watering, watching, and waiting until one day, usually around this time of the year in Kentucky. I spy the tiny orbs begin to pop out through the vines!  I know that very soon the tomatoes will be ready to pick. This year, we have a variety of cherry tomatoes and a couple of larger varieties.

 

Like every summer kitchen throughout the South, my windowsills are lined double-deep with a variety of wonderfully delicious tomatoes.  Ripening in the summer sun.  Just seeing them gives me peace—and gets me motivated to try out my favorite tomato recipes and experiment with new ones.

Through the years, I have found so many curious ways to use the abundance of tomatoes, the most popular staple item in any Southern kitchen.  I have made fresh tomato pasta sauces, salsas, and salads. And there is nothing better than thinly slicing a ripe and colorful heirloom tomato, frying up some country bacon, placing it between two pieces of delicious bread, a few leafs of lettuce and a slathering of  mayonnaise.  Summer BLTs are amazing—and my go-to on more days than I would like to admit!

 

Another summer favorite is Tomato Pie.  I discovered this culinary creation a few years ago.  Magazines in the 1970s began slowly introducing this dish. Definitely a Southern and curious twist on an Italian classic. I experimented with several recipes, added a bit of this and that, and changed it up a bit. A flaky pastry crust is an absolute must and to that I add the tomatoes, mayonnaise, and cheesy filling.  Tomatoes contain a lot of water, so to prevent their natural juiciness from leaking out into the pie, I roast the tomatoes before I add them to the recipe.  My twist is to use our In the Curious Kitchen Pimento Cheese inside the pie filling—in addition to the grated cheddar that is called for in most of the recipes I have found out there.  Give it a try, I know you will love it as much as I do.