Tomatoes

Stuffed tomatoes were a standard summer lunch when I was a child. Made with big ripe home-grown tomatoes and stuffed with a mixture of canned tuna fish and saltines bound with mayo, my siblings and I would gorge on them. The recipe here is more complex and than what my mother made, primarily with the addition of scallions, feta cheese, and capers, but it still satisfies as those long ago tomatoes did.

The best gazpachos are made of vegetables picked and used at the height of the season. And, served immediately, they are very good, but they’re even better when allowed to age for at least 24 hours to enable those incredibly fresh flavors to meld and to take on some of the flavor of the bread.

The Italian Insalata Caprese is a tomato salad created on the island of Capri. It consists of sliced tomatoes, fresh buffalo mozzarella, fresh basil, and olive oil. It's absolutely delicious and well-deserving of its fame. But I like a Greek version of the salad that I make better - in fact it's my standard lunch during tomato season.

This soup is best made with fresh tomatoes in season, but it’s also pretty good made with canned tomatoes in the dead of winter. The garlic is added in two lots here to get two different flavors. The first amount is sautéed with the other vegetables at the beginning of the recipe in good Italian or Spanish fashion. The second goes in near the end to provide a bite. The tomatoes provide most of the liquid.

My quick version of Parmesan Tomatoes hardly deserves to be called a recipe, but it's so good that if you haven't ever made it you should make it tonight. All you need is a small tomato for each person, a bit of thyme, oregano, or basil, and some genuine Parmigiano Reggiano (do not use anything but genuine Parmigiano). By the way, a toaster oven works great for these

Fried Green Tomatoes are a Southern specialty that can be enjoyed at any time during tomato season but tend to be prepared more often before tomatoes begin ripening (the season's first taste of tomato) and at the end of the season to get use the tomatoes before the frost catches them. Nothing will do more to convince you that tomatoes really are a fruit than fried green tomatoes where their tartness will remind you of peaches, and blackberries, and green apples.

Like my recipe for Tomatoes Parmesan, this recipe for slow-roasted tomatoes barely deserves the term "recipe." I don't recall where I ran across it but I makes these five or six times a summer. The result is a highly intense tomato flavor - in fact, this technique can even make supermarket tomatoes edible. They're delicious hot, excellent at room temperature and even good eaten cold - so I always cook a half dozen at a time. And try making these, then chopping them up and tossing them with pasta.