Poem and a recipe

A poem that I read ages ago and been thinking of lately due to the recent bumper crop of tomatoes of all shapes and sizes and colors:

Ode to Tomatoes
By Francisco X. Alarcón

they make
friends
anywhere

red
smiles
in salads

tender
young
generous

hot
salsa
dancers

round
cardinals
of the kitchen

hard
to imagine
cooking

without
first asking
their blessings!



I've been making tomato sauces, tomato-based soups (check out the gazpacho posted earlier) and even stewed some cherry tomatoes for use as a topping for green beans. My latest favorite, though, were the tomato chips from this week.

Last Wednesday I arrived late to my pick up site and lucked out as there were a LOT of red bursting tomatoes. They clearly were nearly past peak so needed to be used immediately. I took three big ones home and sliced them sort of thin (1/4 inch or maybe less) and spread them on two sheet pans and stuck them in a 350 oven. They stayed there for about 30 min then I took them out, seasoned with very light salt and oil them and did my best to flip them.

Keeping an eye on them every 15 min I cooked them maybe another hour altogether. By then they'd gotten to the consistency of sun-dried tomatoes. I cracked the oven door and left them in the oven overnight to dry a bit more. I could have added them to pasta or some other dish but snacked on them all in one sitting. What a treat.

What are you making with your tomatoes? Send us a recipe to post here or make a short comment below.