Ripe blackberries everywhere you look and kids going back to school can only mean one thing in the Pacific Northwest: tomato season.
For you visual thinkers, that's:
Photo by Nick Sarro on Unsplash
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Photo by JJ Thompson on Unsplash
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Photo by Thomas Martinsen on Unsplash
We've been among the overgrown hedges, scratching ourselves up and gathering berries, and we've also been enjoying tomato season. This year we have some deer sharing our tomato crop with us (blast them to smithereens!), but there's still enough to go around.
If you didn't grow any tomatoes yourself, the Market is enjoying the bounty, and it's always fun to mix up a tomato salad plate with different colored fruit. The Market also has the basil and baguette you need to make bruschetta. Or the jalapenos and onions and cilantro for pico de gallo. Or the goat cheese to top your Tomato, Goat Cheese and Basil Pizza.
But for us, this week we went for fresh, Summer Tomato Soup, courtesy of Deborah Madison's recipe.
Summer Tomato Soup
5 lbs fresh tomatoes, destemmed and cut in chunks (no need to peel if you have a food mill)
1 cup diced shallots
2 Tbsp butter
1/2 cup water
1 tsp salt
Over medium heat, melt the butter and cook the shallots a few minutes. Then add the tomato chunks, water, and salt. Simmer, covered, for 1-2 hours. Pass the mixture through a food mill to remove the peel and seeds. Serve!
The soup tastes like pure summer in a bowl. We opted not to accompany it with the traditional grilled cheese sandwiches this time, but rather with Black Bean Tacos. Delicious.
Celebrate back-to-school with a Tomato Hurrah this week. We'll see you at the Market.
