Heirloom Tomato Bruschetta

July 27, 2009 at 4:27 pm · Filed under Uncategorized

The KC Tomato Times Edition #7

I hope everyone is getting their share of heirloom tomatoes from the garden these past two weeks!  It took three trips to the house this weekend to get all of our tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, squash and beans in!

Needless to say…we’re eating fresh veggies every day and are always looking for delicious ways to use lots of tomatoes!  We’re big fans of Thai and Indian cuisine and have made some awesome curries with eggplant, peppers, and tomatoes.  On Friday we had some Bruschetta that was out of this world…if you’d like to try some I’m sure you won’t be disappointed!

First start with some of your favorite heirloom tomatoes…Box Car Willie and Brandywine were the star of the show this evening.  Dice them up and put in a bowl with some fresh basil chiffonade, some balsamic vinegar, a few dashes of olive oil, and some salt and pepper to taste.  Toss these together until they look like this:

While this is soaking in the juices,  take a couple of bulbs of garlic, chop off the top, brush with olive oil and roast them in a 350 degree ven until they are brown and carmalized like this:

Squeeze the garlic out into a bowl and mush it with a fork to make a spread…you can mix in some butter if you’d like.

While the oven is on, you might as well make some french bread!  Home-made is best, but the kind in the can works in a pinch…if you aren’t hungry by now you must have just eaten a Thanksgiving Feast!

While the bread is baking, slice up some fresh mozzerella or even better use some goat cheese.  We were out of goat cheese so we made do.

Now to put it all together!  Put a small smear of the garlic on a slice of bread, top with a half slice of cheese or a smear of goat cheese (you really need to try this with goat cheese!), and then PILE ON the tomato vinegar mix that has been soaking in it’s juices for a while.  Don’t be bashful…pile it on!

I’m very much a meat and potatoes kind of guy, but a huge plate of this and I forget about (well…almost forget about) protein.

In the next week or so I hope to blog about how to process tomatoes with a food mill and some canning tips to preserve your harvest to use all year long.

We’re less than a month from the KCTTTT…please RSVP as soon as you can so I can plan for a crowd.  We’ve got 27 so far…the more the merrier!

Until then…happy gardening!

James

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