YOU SAY TOMATO, I SAY TOMAHTO, BUT NO MATTER, WE LOVE ‘EM!

 From Linda Lee Greene, Author/Artist

 

I didn’t plant tomatoes this season, but at summer’s end, little bundles of them in paper or plastic bags will show up at my back gate, the largesse of my sweet neighbors and friends. I am prepared for the bounty better than in previous years, because I came across an intriguing and simple recipe to preserve them found in the Spring/Summer 1995 issue of “The Cook’s Garden” catalog that has been tucked away and forgotten among my cookbooks all this time. Sadly, at least from my perspective, the “Cook’s Garden,” the mail-order and seed supply house of Londonderry, Vermont has since been assimilated into the W. Atlee Burpee Company. I am therefore, so happy to still have in my possession this edition of the catalog as a memento of the innovative and famous organic growers enterprise.  

           

Founder of the “Cook’s Garden” and author of the catalog Shepherd Ogden writes that this recipe for oven-dried tomatoes promises to be as good as anything found in a store. A further benefit is that it is so easy to prepare. Once properly dried, the tomatoes will keep in the refrigerator for several months, to be used as the base for tomato sauce, tomato-based soups, and as a topping on pizza, among other uses limited only by the imagination.

 

OVEN-DRIED TOMATOES

 

4 pints of Principe Borghese or San Marzano tomatoes (or other Roma heirloom varieties)

1 tbsp sea salt

2 cups fresh basil leaves

1 cup olive oil

2 sterilized jars (pint-sized canning jars with lids and seals, or canning jars with self-sealing lids)

 

Slice tomatoes in half lengthwise. Scoop out seeds. Place on cookie sheets, flat side up. Sprinkle lightly with sea salt. Set in a warm oven (150°). When tomatoes are completely dry (12 to 24 hours), pack in pint jars, alternating with a layer of basil leaves. Continue to build layers of tomatoes and basil leaves, and at the top of the jars, drizzle in olive oil until all contents are coated. Place in the refrigerator where the tomatoes will stay fresh for several months.     

 

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Rich and spoiled-rotten Olivia Montoyo Simms wouldn’t know how to prepare a tomato dish even if she was so hungry that “her belly was gnawing on her backbone,” to borrow an old-timey expression. But Olivia has no match in the ways of wooing a man to her risky schemes. A mysterious stranger at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas just might be the one fellow who has what it takes to wangle her comeuppance, though. Read all about it in A CHANCE AT THE MOON, my novel of love, betrayal, and murder.©

 

Purchase Link for A CHANCE AT THE MOON: https://tinyurl.com/3dc75u6p

 

Image: “The Cook’s Garden” catalog cover: woodcut by American woodcut artist and children’s books illustrator Mary Azarian   

 

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