What Are You Planning with Your Summer Tomatoes?

Those of you in California are seeing tomatoes everywhere, but we East Coasters haven't quite hit the mother lode yet. Which means we sit around dreaming of exactly what we'll do with those vine-ripe and heirloom beauties when they show up. We can't wait...

First up: Pasta with a simple, fresh, no-cook tomato sauce. We leave some chopped tomatoes settling in olive oil and basil for a few hours, until they are saucy and ready for the hot pasta. We think that's just about the best way to enjoy ripe, juicy tomatoes.

This recipe from Epicurious is the same idea:

Angel Hair Pasta with Fresh Tomato Sauce

We are also looking forward to tomato sandwiches: white bread, good mayonnaise, big tomato slices, and salt. Simple and perfect.

What tomato recipes are you looking forward to (or already enjoying)? What would you like to see on The Kitchn? Let us know!

(Images: Gregory Han and Emily Ho; John Kernick for Gourmet)

Comments (8)

My mom's salsa: juicy tomatoes, cilantro, red onion, jalapeno. Sure, you can jazz salsa up with all kinds of different ingredients, fruits, etc., but for me, nothing beats this basic recipe.

GAZPACHO. mmmm, I can't get enough of the stuff. I've got tomatoes on my counter now, waiting for me to go get cilantro and tomato juice.

I'm currently obsessed with making fresh tomato sauce. I've never really seen what the big deal with tomato sauce was, but this has totally changed my mind.

Mediterranean salad with big chunks of tomato, cucumber and feta cheese, tossed with some chopped red onion, olive oil, and herbs.

And lots of tomato sauce.

And oven-dried tomatoes.

I can't wait! We got our very first CSA tomato of the season last week, and it was a beauty.

:) I o.d. on caprese salad all season: heirloom tomatoes, mozarella, fresh basil, balsamic, olive oil, salt and pepper. I can eat it a big pile of it for dinner alone and never need to turn on the stove. Hope you get your fix soon, East Coasters!

We made a huge batch of roasted tomato stock this weekend. Just a simple mirepoix and the oven roasted tomatos put through a food mill. Delicious for soups - the first of which was a tomato basil soup with a bit of orange and finished off with some vanilla goat cheese! so yummy...

This summer seems to be all about the BLTs for me.

I'm a sucker for a tomato salad with nothing but a mixture of heirlooms, cucumber, red onion, good olive oil and red wine vinegar. Or, I just forgo the cukes and onion and have only tomatoes like we did last night.