I just want to report, for the record, that I’m over the whole it’s-too-cold-to-eat-tomatoes thing. This week’s diet has included caprese salad (including for breakfast, and don’t you dare judge me, because you would have done it too if you’d thought of it first…), some amazing roasted gazpacho that I might have to write up at some point, my first BLTs of the season, and yellow Sungold and red grape tomatoes eaten like candy out of bowls on my kitchen counter.
Have I ever mentioned on this blog how much I hate grape tomatoes? I have, for years, hated them with a passion after eating, once too often, the Bad Grape Tomato. You know what I’m talking about: the one that looks OK as it’s going into your mouth, but that is rotten and bitter and grassy in a Very Bad Way? Yeah, so I started boycotting those at the store years ago.
And then I stumbled on them at the Civic Center Farmer’s Market on Sunday afternoon and bought some, purportedly to slow-roast them.
But instead, I can’t stop eating them. It turns out that even grape tomatoes, which I have long thought of as a grocery store-industrial standard to be avoided, are redeemed by eating them just after they’ve been picked.
You’d think I’d have all this figured out by now. Apparently not.
I’m not excited about grape tomatoes, but I’m growing them this year (and the first of them have just turned red!) because my husband requested them and I expect they’ll be just as good as any other tomato…maybe better.
And roasted gazpacho? Recipe please!
My breakfast every day this week has been a handful of cherry tomatoes, preferrably right off the plants while I walk the dew-covered garden. God, that sounds like a scene out of a cheesy book.
hahahahahahaha!!
My dear I’ve had more bad grapes than grape tomatoes but I understand all to well PTSD…(post tomatoe stress digestion). Blek but in life like in produce some things look so good on the outside and then you take a bite and want to spit it out. In our garden which is ridiculously overgrown (but wonderful) we have discovered some orange colored grape tomatoes. Chase and I have no idea how this happened but they are quite delicious.
Like you I avoided them (and cherry tomatoes) like the plague. Then accidently planted some. Now I find myself standing in the garden, picking and eating rather then hoeing and weeding… They are really fantastic when warmed a bit…by the sun…
Damn, I miss my garden this year!!!!!
We’ve been growing grape tomatoes in a large pot for several summers now and I love them homegrown. It’s like the never-ending tomato bush, too, it just flowers and grows tomatoes all summer.
Love the blog.
Jenny, roasted gazpacho recipe request acknowledged! I’ll see what I can do — might have to make/post it next week.
Heather, a cheesy, yet DELICIOUS book.
Kären, that’s so funny about the orange tomatoes — I wonder if you acquired a mislabeled plant? Or if it’s a volunteer? Regardless, yum!
Katie, ooh…sun-warmed…yum.
Susan, that sounds pretty darn heavenly.
We really like grape tomatoes fresh from the garden. We have six plants(!) that are producing like wildfire now. I think we’ll be able to keep all our neighbors in grape tomatoes from now till October.
Andrea, I had three yellow pear tomato plants last year and could barely keep up with them — unfortunately, in that case, they weren’t all that flavorful, either, so they were much better cooked than raw. But six plants? You’re going to be spending all your time harvesting! Sounds like a delicious problem to have.
Such great grape tomato love…I must contribute.
Try throwing a few in the skillet with your morning eggs. While heating up a little EVOO, slice a handful of grape tomatoes in half longways. Throw them in the olive oil. Shake the pan around a couple of times so that they cook evenly. When they just start to lose their stiffness, add your scrambled egg or eggs. Tiny bit of white pepp and sea salt? Ohhh myyyyy.