KISS: It’s Tomato Season

Tomatoes are one of our absolutely favorite crops of the entire year and, as any of our close friends and families could verify, we can blab on and on about them all day, every day, from this time in July all the way to mid-September, but today we’re actually going to take our own advice and K.I.S.S.

Keep It Super Simple.

That’s the best cooking tip we ever heard when it comes to tomato season: keep the recipes simple, keep them summery, and you will never be disappointed.

At the end of this post, we offer you two of our favorite and easiest tomato recipes. They don’t need much else besides fresh bread and other seasonal vegetables.

In fact, the hardest part might just be selecting your tomatoes, especially if you’re unfamiliar with all the shapes and colors and variety that now come to market.

So, before we get into our quick and easy summer tomato recipes, a brief rundown on the tomato itself, what makes them so good and so much better than the tomatoes found in grocery stores.

Urban Roots at Bryn Mawr Farmers’ Market

Freshness is the Secret Ingredient

Whether they’re grown outside in the fields or inside a greenhouse, tomatoes that are left on the vine and picked fresh for market are always going to be sweeter and more flavorful than the ones found in supermarkets.

That’s because the supermarket tomatoes are harvested when they are still green and hard as a rock and weeks away from ripening, better for shipping.

Often, those supermarket-bound tomatoes ripen while they’re stacked in a refrigerated truck traveling across the country or under the fluorescent lights of the produce department.

That’s no way to grow a tomato!

They are supposed to ripen as much as possible on the vine, in the fresh air, under the hot summer sun and under the cool blanket of moonlight.

In fact, scientists have discovered that UV radiation from natural sunlight has a favorable effect on the plant itself, producing a much healthier, better tasting tomato.

What are Heirloom Tomatoes?

The heirloom tomato is one of the most popular items at the farmers’ markets throughout the entire growing season. Many of the farmers need to add extra tables and tents to their displays just for all their heirloom tomatoes.

But they’re still a relatively new ingredient. Some shoppers are still unfamiliar with this kind of tomato. We even hear some of them ask the farmers: is this tomato supposed to be green?

Yes! Heirloom tomatoes come in all different colors: red, green, orange, yellow, even black and blue.

But it’s not the colors that make an heirloom tomato so special. It’s the seeds.

In order to be classified as an heirloom, there can be no genetic modification in the seed and the plants must be open-pollinated. That simply means it has been pollinated in the fields by birds, insects and the wind.

That open-pollination and that exposure to the elements results in a unique tomato for every plant. That’s why they look inconsistent, sometimes misshaped and wrinkled, sometimes cracked and sometimes even a little ugly.

We have to admit: we like the individual nature of an heirloom tomato display. Maybe it’s just our pugnacious nature, maybe we’ve been exposed to too many elements ourselves, but here at Farm to City we like to eat tomatoes that don’t fit very well into a box or a shipping container.

Keep it Super Simple

The best part about a simple and summery tomato recipe is the quick prep time. Often the only preparation is to slice, salt, and serve.

We also love the idea of not having to turn the oven on and keeping the kitchen cool. In our two recipes below, the only time you need to add more heat is to toast some bread.

Click on the link below to download the following two recipes:

Pan con Tomate: literally bread with tomato, doesn’t get much simpler than that, right? This is a light Catalan favorite, often served as part of a tapas menu, that can only be prepared when tomatoes are in season and plentiful.

Horiatiki Salad: an unbelievably easy and great tasting Greek tomato salad that will become a new summer classic for you and your family. The only trick here is to liberally salt the tomatoes, allowing the juices to release and form its own vinaigrette.

Tomato Recipes