Eat Well: Killer Tomatoes with WWW

The following is another delicious guest post by WWW. Enjoy!

I was all set to write about grain this week until today when I stepped into my garden after being in LA for two days. There, staring at me, were six pounds of plump, ripe tomatoes and several fallen green ones, begging to be eaten. I was immediately reminded of the 70's cult classic and decided I had better figure out what to do with all those tomatoes before they decided to eat ME! After picking two huge bowls full, I thought it might be fun to make an entire dinner with tomatoes so I gathered my cookbooks and set to work planning a tomato themed meal. Even if you don’t have a garden, cheap vine ripened tomatoes are plentiful right now at every farmer’s market so it’s a great time to cook with these luscious veggie-fruits.

I know I already did a post about summer soup, but as I said before, I LOVE soup and tomato soup uses several pounds of tomatoes, which is a good thing when you have a lot of them. I thought it would be a perfect time to try my new cookbook, Love Soup, by Anna Thomas. I happened to have all of the ingredients in the house for her tomato and fennel soup with blood oranges. This delicious soup is easy and quite filling for a light summer soup.

Tomato and fennel Soup with Blood Orange

(From Love Soup by Anna Thomas) Serves 6

2 ½ lbs ripe tomatoes

1 ½ Tbs. olive oil

1 medium yellow onion, chopped

1 large fennel bulb, chipped

1 tsp sea salt plus more to taste

freshly ground black pepper

cayenne

1 ½ cups vegetable broth

¾ cups fresh blood orange juice

Garnishes: 1 cup drained yogurt or crème fraiche

2 Tbs. sugar

grated zest of 1 blood orange

sprigs of fennel greens

Cut crosses in the tomatoes with a sharp knife and scald them in boiling water for 1 minute, then drain, rinse with cold water, and slip off their skins.

tomatoes, skinned

Cut the tomatoes into large pieces, saving all of the juice. You should have about 5 ½ cups of cut-up tomatoes.

Heat the oil in a nonstick skillet. Add the chopped onion and fennel, sprinkled with a big pinch of salt and some pepper.

Cook the vegetables over medium heat, stirring often, until they are soft and golden but not brown, about 20 minutes.

Combine the cooked onion and fennel in a soup pot with the tomatoes and their juice, a pinch of cayenne, the broth, and the blood orange juice.

Cover the pot and simmer the soup for about half an hour, or until the fennel is entirely soft and the tomatoes have released their juice and turned dark.

Allow the soup to cool slightly and puree it until it is completely smooth, either in a blender or with an immersion blender. Return the soup to the heat, bring it back to a simmer, and taste.

Adjust the seasoning with additional salt and pepper if needed, and add a touch more broth if it seems too thick.

Whisk the drained yogurt or creme fraiche with the sugar.

Serve the hot soup in shallow bowls and sprinkle a tiny pinch of grated zest over each serving, then drop a big spoonful of the yogurt in the center of the bowl and garnish with sprigs of fennel greens.

***

Now for the main course....

I wanted something I could whip up while the soup was cooking and since several green tomatoes had dropped off the vine, I decided to make fried green tomatoes (I must have movies on the brain today!!). This is a very easy main course to make and is a great substitute for meat since green tomatoes have a pungent tang to them.

Fried Green Tomatoes

4 green tomatoes

flour

2 eggs, beaten

1 cup buttermilk (or yogurt)

Seasoned bread crumbs OR cornmeal mixed with salt, pepper, and herbs of your choice

(or half bread crumbs, half cornmeal)

Canola oil (or half butter, half oil)

Cut tomatoes into ¼-½ inch slices:

Beat eggs and buttermilk* together before coating tomatoes in flour.

Then dip tomatoes in egg/milk mixture.

Dredge in breadcrumbs or cornmeal.

Heat oil or butter in pan until hot. Fry tomatoes in batches until golden brown on both sides.

(don’t crowd the pan)

Put finished tomatoes in 200 degree oven on paper towels to keep warm

(as you finish cooking the other tomatoes)

...Voila!

(served here with fresh homemade salsa)

***

For my final dish, I made a simple caprese salad…sliced tomatoes topped with buffalo mozzarella, fresh basil leaves, drizzled with good quality olive oil and salt and pepper.

I am sure you must be thinking I am crazy to make an entire dinner of tomatoes, but honestly, each dish tasted so different that we really didn’t notice that the entire dinner was made from tomatoes.

I think, though, tomorrow’s harvest will be shared with the neighbors and I will go to the movies!

Love,
WWW

*I substituted buttermilk with (goat milk) yogurt and it was delicious! Recommended!