Tomato on toasted bun with basil


Homemade hamburger bun made earlier. Not used for one of two  hamburgers, so, toasted here. 

Regular bland Philadelphia cream cheese instead of butter. Maybe goat cheese would be better.


I do not know what to do about tomatoes this time of year. They sure are pretty but utterly banal, nearly mealy. They contribute nothing. 

Earlier I put old hard dried raisins in a pot of beans with Swiss chard. The liquid revived the raisins that I almost threw away. I'm thinking sun-dried tomatoes can be similarly revived, and perhaps chopped up and used as substitute with more flavor than sad tasteless hothouse tomatoes. I do not care so much for tinned tomatoes. They are okay for soups and stews when added near the end so that they do not dissolve completely. I don't know. It's a problem.

The basil is from the Aerogarden that is only just started. All the plants are quite young, the mint slowest of all to start. But basil grows faster than anything else. Two stalks came up and now both have already been trimmed to encourage them to bush out and to allow the rest of the plants time to catch up. The light is still at its lowest position for the benefit of the slower growing plants. The Aerogarden is coming along nicely. 

4 comments:

vza said...

In Chicago, the only tomatoes worth eating in the winter are the grape tomatoes. I also slice them lengthwise and slow roast them with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper.

Chip Ahoy said...

Thank you.

I knew the small ones were better, but I didn't know which ones. I had a bland batch of cherry tomatoes.

Today I thought of smearing tomato paste on them to boost their flavor. Does that sound ridiculous?

vza said...

Smearing tomato paste on cherry tomatoes? I would think it would be too harsh of a flavor.

I don't buy cherry tomatoes in the winter. Very blah. Only the grape.

Chip Ahoy said...

No, I meant smear tomato paste on bland nothing regular tomatoes to compensate for their shortcoming. I have three on the vine with no taste whatsoever. It makes me angry that they're so lovely with no flavor at all. It faked me out.

But for now on it will be unadulterated grape tomatoes during winter per your suggestion.

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