Oven Dried Tomatoes

I have definitely been blessed this year with an abundance of tomatoes. The tomato plants that I planted in the fall have served me well (that is the tomatoes that great, big, huge mutt hasn't eaten!) but my CSA has also been sending me some. As an added bonus when I visited Jaden from Steamy Kitchen I left her place with a bag of sweet little juicy tomatoes.

Well, all of these tomatoes have been adding up on my counter and I had to do something with them before they rotted. The large ones were processed using my food mill and frozen for sauce and the little ones I had decided to dry them. I knew that sun drying was not going to work out but had heard that you could easily dry them in the oven. I consulted my favorite resource...Twitter! Follow me here! and Sandy from Eat Real gave me exactly what I was looking for.


I washed and dried the tomatoes. Threw out any of them with blemishes. I first did the Roma's I had. Sliced them and tossed them in olive oil and salt and pepper. Placed them on a baking rack and turned my oven on to 225 degrees. And I cooked them...and cooked them. I checked on them about hourly and turned them over half way through. I think in total they probably cooked for about 3 hrs.

The next ones I did were the cherry tomatoes. I halved them tossed them with the olive oil, salt and pepper and threw them in...

Almost done...

Done:

These are so delicious! I am storing them in the fridge right now covered in oil. I figured to help preserve them this is the best way! I have been using them on salads and in a pasta sauce that I will post later. They can be used in the exact same way as sundried tomatoes!!!

Oh and a Happy Belated birthday Mom...did you get the flowers I sent (just kidding!)?

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

Pasta with Tomato and Basil

Okay, the picture I had on here all day was bugging me. I made this again and with whole wheat pasta...for the picture!
Don't tell me you've never done that!!!

I have had a couple of really hectic days and my poor family is really paying for it this time. Last night for dinner I fed the kids panko breaded tilapia, from the freezer!!! Along side of that I served a frozen dinner roll. Nice dinner huh?

So while I was up in the middle of the night while EVERYONE else slept I was trying to do a bit of meal planning. You see my sister is coming into town for a week starting Monday and I have nothing done. No cleaning, no cooking, and certainly no grocery shopping. Thanks goodness it is only Saturday and have a full 2 days to get this all done!!!

While I was thinking about food I realized that I had not posted one of my all time favorite meals in a long time. Not because we haven't been eating it but because we are so used to eating it that it doesn't seem that special anymore. But, I bet to you guys who are not getting fresh tomatoes right now this will seem mighty special to you and you will want to book mark for use in the summer!

The absolute best thing about this dish is that you make it ahead of time and it is good served either at room temperature, with a slight chill to it or warmed up a bit! I call that pretty versatile don't you?

Pasta With Fresh Tomato and Basil (4 weight watcher points figured at 6 servings)

1 head of garlic and 2 Tbsp olive oil
3 ripe plum tomatoes (I just use whatever is tasting good right them)
1/3 C fresh basil (chopped)
1 Tbsp capers
1 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 Tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste
1 box of long thin pasta (angel hair, linguine, spaghetti)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

• Peel of most of the paper from around the garlic head. Slice off the pointy top of the garlic. This should expose all of the cloves a bit. Place in an oven proof pan (I use a pie plate). Top with 2 Tbsp of olive oil and coarse salt. Cover with aluminum foil and bake in the oven for about 45 minutes. Allow to cool then remove the cloves and mash with a fork.
• Dice the tomatoes (if the have a ton of seeds squeeze them out).
• Add the garlic, basil, capers, olive oil and balsamic vinegar.
• Let stand for at least 20 minutes.
• Cook pasta.
• Mix sauce with pasta and serve warm or at room temperature. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Give this a try the next time you have some delicious ripe tomatoes. I know you will love it too!!!

As Always...

Judy

www.nofearentertaining.com

My Favorite Summer Sandwich

A Caprese Sandwich?

This sandwich is one of my most favorite things to eat. I've posted the mozzarella and tomato salad before and really all this is is that same salad with bread. Two

Two nice fat slices of dead ripe tomato, a couple of leaves of basil, some fresh mozzarella, some salt and pepper and a few drizzles of good balsamic vinegar, all squished between 2 slices of good bread or in this case a bagel (the bread was baking).

Yummmm and pure summer!

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

Lunch?

I was making my lunch today, after spending the whole morning cleaning up messes, and I looked at it and thought "Summer". I was instantly transported to a beautiful July or early August day up in Canada. I guess it is the smells of the garden fresh basil and the nice juicy, ripe tomatoes that does it.

This is probably my favorite way to eat fresh mozzarella and tomatoes and I know sometimes this is called a "Caprese Salad". I like mine really uncomplicated so I hesitate to call it a Caprese. I like mine with tomatoes, basil, fresh mozzarella, salt and balsamic vinegar. That's it. No olive oil, no capers, no pepper. Just the bright, light flavors of summer.

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

Freezing Tomatoes

Bright, fresh tomato puree!

By now all of you know that I am really, really saddened by the ending of our growing season. I have found several ways to prolong it but shortly I am going to be supermarket bound again! Yesterday though i took the girls to our local U-Pick and as I was at the cash desk checking out they had some irregular tomatoes (smaller ones than what you would normally buy) for real cheap. I bought 2 baskets of them knowing that I would pull out my handy ricer and get them frozen for a meal later on down the road when nothing but fresh, homegrown tomatoes would do!

I wanted to share with you the process because most of you are just coming into the summer season. Now, I have absolutely no idea where you would get this type of equipment but my MIL in rural Pennsylvania got it for me years ago. If you can get something like it they are generally called fruit and vegetable mills, click here for a reasonable example you will use it over and over.

Here is the whole process (took us about 10 minutes in all):

Clean and halve the tomatoes

The crank on the side gets turned and the tomatoes are removed of their skin and seeds. See all those tomatoes I got for $3.00?

The skin and the seeds get pushed out here and the puree goes to the other side.

I have a canner but this is the way I like to freeze my tomatoes. I simply put the puree in the bags and toss them into the freezer.

We will use these in a simple spaghetti type sauce or maybe to cook a chicken in. Whatever we do end up using these for the couple of minutes it took to do this was sooooo worth it!!!

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

I love fresh produce!

To me there is nothing better than a nice huge fresh salad for dinner. I have always been like that. I love my veggies raw but have never really liked them cooked. Beans, corn, carrots, peas, cabbage, broccoli, cabbage and yes even potatoes taste so much better to me raw than cooked! So I guess it just makes sense that I love a nice big salad with nothing but fresh veggies!

Last night was ice skating lessons which always make for too late of a night and the girls are always so tired by the time they get ready for bed. I knew dinner wasn't going to be anything really fancy. We had decided on steak and salad. We are still trying to work our way through the box of produce that we got over the weekend. The girls won't eat salad so we steamed up some broccoli for them. The salad was great. We used the sweet onions, fresh rip tomatoes, radishes, and some of the small tender garlic just nicely chopped.

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com