More Tomato Recipes

Tomatoes are in full swing now at my house and we have more than we know what to do with! We made a delicious Roasted Tomato Soup and also some Stuffed Tomatoes to use some of them up.



Roasted Tomato Soup

10 to 12 (approximately) Tomatoes, chopped
3 Garlic Cloves, peeled and whole
Olive Oil to drizzle
Balsamic Vinegar to drizzle
Salt and Pepper to taste

2 tbsp butter
1/2 of a large Vidalia Onion, diced
1 teaspoon Paprika
Salt and Pepper to taste
Handful fresh Basil
Some milk or water to thin out if needed (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Combine chopped Tomatoes and Garlic in an oven-safe dish.
3. Drizzle with Olive Oil and Balsamic Vinegar. Season with Salt and Pepper.
4. Place in oven until the Garlic is tender and the Tomatoes are roasted and starting to brown at their edges.

5. In a large saucepan on the stove, melt butter and fry Onion until translucent.
6. Add Paprika and Salt and Pepper.
7. Then add the Roasted Tomato mixture and half the Basil leaves, left whole.
8. Puree soup with a hand blender or in a food processor.
9. Add milk or water to thin out if necessary.
10. Serve in individual bowls, garnished with the remaining Basil, julienned, and some homemade croutons (see my sister and my shared blog for a basic recipe).

Stuffed Tomatoes

8 medium Tomatoes

1 1/2 cups Instant Brown Rice
1/4 cup sliced Green Onions
1 Green Bell Pepper, Finely Diced
1 Tbsp Chili Powder
Salt and Pepper to taste

1 slice of Whole Wheat bread, toasted and crumbled
Garlic Powder to taste
Dried Basil to taste
Salt and Pepper to taste

8 thin slices Cheddar Cheese

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Slice off the tops of the Tomatoes, green still intact. Set aside. Additionally, hollow out the Tomato Pulp. Set that aside for the rice mixture.

3. Cook Rice following package directions.
4. When Rice is cooked, add Green Onion, Green Pepper, Tomato Pulp, and seasonings.
5. Continue to cook to reduce down the tomato liquid slightly. Set aside.

6. Meanwhile, crumble the toasted bread on a cutting board and season with Garlic, Basil, Salt and Pepper, to taste. Set aside.

7. Place hollowed Tomatoes in a baking dish. Fill each with approximately two tbsp of the rice mixture. Top each with a slice of cheddar cheese and divide the bread crumbs equally among them. Top each with their Tomato top.
8. Place them in the oven for approximately 30 to 40 minutes until Tomatoes are roasted through.

Late-Summer Vegetable Dishes

With it being late-August, all gardens are producing bountifully, and it can be difficult to come up with creative vegetable side dishes. Here are two excellent recipes to either use up those cobs of corn you bought from your local farmer's market or the plentiful tomatoes you have ripening in your garden.

Spicy Grilled Corn Side Dish

My sister and I created this dish to go with some rib steaks (cooked to a perfect medium) and baked potatoes. It was truly the perfect accompaniment with a slight South American feel with the cilantro, corn, and hot pepper. We can proudly say that the green pepper, banana pepper, and cherry tomatoes came straight from our garden.

1 barbecue-proof pan (or two aluminum loaf pans, as I had to use)
4 ears corn on the cob, kernels removed
1 small onion, diced
1 green pepper, diced
1 roasted red pepper packed in oil, diced
1 freshly roasted banana pepper, diced
1 cup cherry tomatoes
olive oil to drizzle
salt and pepper
1 handful cilantro, roughly chopped

1. Preheat your barbecue to about medium heat.
2. Combine corn kernels, onion, peppers, and cherry tomatoes in barbecue-proof pan(s)
3. Drizzle with enough olive oil to keep mixture from burning during cooking and season to taste with salt and pepper.
4. Place dish on barbecue, consistently stirring until all the vegetables are tender and the cherry tomatoes cracked and oozing tomato juices.
5. Stir in Cilantro at the last minute and serve.

Basic Tomato Salad

A tomato salad to me should have both acidity and sweetness, which is why I chose to use a white wine vinegar for its sourness and a balsamic which tends to be sweeter. I added some oregano and basil for some extra summer flair and complexity.

4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 tsp granulated white sugar
1 tbsp basil, roughly chopped
1 tbsp oregano, roughly chopped
salt and pepper to taste

6 to 8 tomatoes (basically enough to match the dressing)
1/2 an onion, diced

1. In a large bowl, combine olive oil, vinegars, sugar, herbs, and salt and pepper.
2. Cut garden tomatoes into chunks or slices. Add to the dressing.
3. Add diced onion to mixture as well and mix thoroughly.
4. Serve in four salad bowls, as I feel this recipe is adequate for four people.

Indian Dinner

So, as a continuation from the last post, I will explain the other Indian dishes that my sister and I made from our Indian cookbook. This first one is a potato dish called "Tamatar Aloo", which contains potatoes sauteed with a mixture of Indian spices, lemon juice, tomatoes, and cilantro. We found that the outcome looked nothing like the picture in the cookbook, and that perhaps there were too many spices and too much lemon juice for such a small amount of potatoes. The result was that you could taste mostly lemon juice, cilantro, and paprika, but little else. I think that, if we make this again, we will use less spices so as to have a dish that is more fragrant than overpowering.


For our main dish, we made "Chicken Vindaloo", which my sister and I agreed was much more successful than the potato dish. It was deliciously tender chicken simmered in a paste of Vindaloo Masala, onions, tomatoes, garlic, ginger, turmeric, and cayenne, and finished with some lemon juice. The flaw of the book is it doesn't give a recipe to making a Vindaloo Masala, which is basically a spice mix, so you would have to either seek a recipe on your own, or buy a paste of it in the store as I had to do. I searched around for recipes, but they varied so much that I decided to buy one of the VH sauces for Vindaloo Masala. The recipe only calls for two tablespoons of it, so I figured using the paste wouldn't be an issue, but while it resulted in an incredibly flavourful curry, it probably didn't count as an authentic Vindaloo, because it really wasn't that spicy at all.

I also made a "Mango Chutney" from this book, which I think was a very good starter recipe, but it was overly sour due to the two and a half cups of vinegar used to just two pounds of mangoes. I would instead, since I'm not canning the chutney, use less vinegar in order to obtain a much more balanced and well-rounded chutney.


And here is a picture of the entire meal!!

Naan Bread

My sister and I decided to have an Indian dinner one night, as we've been hooked on the spices used in that cuisine ever since we had our first taste of it at a remarkable Indian buffet in Ottawa, Ontario (I really wish I remembered the name of it, but we were quite young when we went).

Well, we received an Indian cooking book as a gift, very aptly named "Complete Indian Cooking", which includes a variety of recipes like Soups and Starters; Meat (each has their own section); Rice, grains, and pulses; Vegetarian; Breads and Accompaniments; and Desserts, just to name a few. The book also identifies what types of tools one would need in Indian cooking, as well as the spices.

The Naan bread I made from this book was really yummy and much better, and cheaper, than what you can buy at the grocery store. It involved ingredients that any western household would regularly have in their pantry; I only needed to purchase plain yogurt. Perhaps the most tedious part of making bread is the part where you have to let it sit and rise, and this recipe required a whole 4 hours to rise, which is longer than any bread recipe I've tried in the past. On the plus side, when it comes to cooking the bread, it is a rather fast process, because you divide the bread into twelve Naan, stretch the dough into oblong shapes, and cook them on one side in a frying pan. Then, you butter and sprinkle poppy seeds on the raw side and finish them under the broil in your oven for approximately five minutes.

The Naan was quite dense and chewy, which made it an excellent accompaniment to a saucy curry and chutney.


Since the Naan bread recipe made twelve, we had eight pieces left for dinner the next day. It is tomato season here in Ontario, so we decided to make "Double Tomato Bruschetta" from allrecipes.com, which has been a regularly used recipe for my sister and I for the past four years or so. This recipe typically uses a baguette, but since we had the Naan bread, we figured we could slice them in half and get 16 pieces of Bruschetta. Actually, I liked using the Naan for this recipe better than a baguette, because the surface area is greater on which to put the tomato mixture and mozzarella cheese, and we were able to use up all the tomato mixture, which we've typically had to leave behind when using an entire baguette. Because the Naan is so dense, it holds up well to the olive oil, sundried-tomato liquid, and balsamic vinegar in the tomato mixture, and does not become soggy.

Trio of Pasta

I really love pasta, but who doesn't? Oh yeah, my German grandfather, who did not even garner enjoyment from the spaetzle with meat and gravy my grandmother would set on the table. Oh well, he was a tremendous lover of food, you know, and I am truly my Opa's granddaughter.

The recipe for this "Swiss Chard, Herb, and Cherry Tomato Pasta" can be found in my sister's and my garden blog. It was a really delicious combo of al dente noodles, garden-fresh swiss chard and grape tomatoes, and salty grated Parmesan cheese. When the tomatoes are sauteed in the frying pan with olive oil, they start to crack so the juices ooze out and form the sauce, and they have a really concentrated tomato flavour, almost like what you would get out of canned tomatoes, but much sweeter.



My friend, Katie, I feel is almost a pasta aficionado, as whenever we have a dinner party get-together, something starchy in a flavourful sauce is almost always on the menu. This recipe for Penne with Tomato Bacon Sauce was found on Chef Michael Smith's website.

This dish is so simple for something that tastes so good! It involves the cooking of eight slices of bacon before adding the seasonings and canned tomatoes, which I feel is crucial to the recipe, because bacon fat has the capability of cutting through the blandness of canned tomatoes without the need for a ton of seasonings. As a result, the sauce was rich and really tasty to eat! This is a keeper recipe and one I might add into a regular routine.



This pasta, as my sister and I would like to call "Rainbow Garden Pasta With Bacon", because it has colourful fischietti pasta noodles and vegetables from our garden, includes a mixture of swiss chard, cherry tomatoes, zucchini, onion, green pepper, garlic, and bacon. We also added red pepper flakes, which we love, for some heat. All in all, the mixture is not terribly different from our rigatoni, but we love this combo because it tastes so fresh and allows all the flavours to shine through.

Recipe:

4 cups fichietti or other colourful pasta
6 bacon slices, cut in pieces
1 small onion, diced
7 cloves of garlic, minced
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes, (or less if you like it less spicy)
1 green bell pepper, diced
1 small zucchini, sliced and cut in half moons
handful cherry tomatoes
approximately 10 small swiss chard leaves
handful of Italian herbs like Oregano, Rosemary, Parsley and Basil
salt and pepper

Fry bacon in pan until lightly browned. Add aromatics and red pepper flakes (I like to season at this point too) and fry until onions start to soften. Add green pepper and zucchini because they'll take the longest to cook. When they're cooked halfway, add the tomatoes and swiss chard, and cook until the tomatoes are bruised and juicy, and the swiss chard is tender.

While sauce sits over low warm heat, bring salted water to the boil, and cook pasta. When pasta is cooked, strain and add to the sauce (do not rinse as you will lose the starch which allows the sauce to stick). Add your combination of Italian herbs, and more salt and pepper if needed.