beXnlog

Mega

This past Saturday at the Farmers' Market we reaped the pinnacle of all things tomato = a 1.5 lb German Stripe heirloom tomato for FREE! (Note the plate in the picture is a full-sized dinner plate!)

Over the past few weeks we've been trying out all sorts of different heirloom tomatoes, enjoying the varied flavors, colors, shapes and textures. Two weeks ago we ran across a sunny yellow tomato with streaks of red inside, with a sweet flavor and juicy texture. We found out it was called a "German Stripe," prized for its "good tomato flavor."

So on Saturday we showed up in the late afternoon; all the tomatoes were picked over and only the bruised were left. be was busy peeking into some stacked crates of tomatoes when he spied a mega German Stripe. The vendor immediately told be he couldn't sell it since it had a bruise on one side - so he offered it to us for free! After he weighed it and declared it was worth $5.00 just by itself, we happily took the tomato and bought some hot peppers, rosemary sprigs and a handful of other tomatoes. I don't recall the name of the vendor but they've been in the NE corner of Union Square for the past few Saturdays. It's the one with all sorts of heirloom tomatoes, eggplant and herbs. There's only a few more weeks of tomato bounty so enjoy them while you can!

Meanwhile on the dinner front, i really felt like cooking tonight so i baked 2 pans of cornbread, 1 pan of peach crisp (with Farmers' Market peaches! so good!), fried up 2 green tomatoes with a cashew chutney and heated up some Tabatchnick vegetarian chile. I've been waiting for the neverending heat wave to end so i could run the oven without running out of the kitchen. I've been craving cornbread with crunchy crusts. It just made sense tonight.

A good tip i learned online: instead of buying a whole container of buttermilk (where you use 1 cup and the rest solidifies into a white lump of scariness), you can make an easy buttermilk substitution with:

1 cup of regular milk or soymilk
1 T of lemon juice

Stir together and let stand at room temperature for 5-10 minutes. Use as buttermilk.

I couldn't detect a difference using a soymilk/lemon substitution and neither could be. We're always stocked with soymilk and fresh lemons, whereas i only buy buttermilk for cornbread.

posted by beXn @ 1:14 AM