Prime Cuts » Tomatoes

Tomato Leather

Justin Levy — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 03:15:57 +0000

Today we have a guest post from Christpher S. Penn. Christopher is one of the top minds in social media, an analytics god, a foodie, and a ninja (yes, a real live ninja) on the side. You can follow him on Twitter where he shares tons of useful information on a daily basis.

This recipe was originally posted over on Christopher’s blog and once I read it I begged him to let me post it here for all of you. This is an innovative recipe and the first time I’ve read about something like this. I’m definitely going to give this a try this weekend.

An interesting thing I tried over the weekend. Take a can of crushed tomatoes, add salt and pepper as necessary, then pour it all on a baking sheet and bake it in the oven at 170 degrees for 12 hours or until dry and dark. You end up with a snack that tastes like sun-dried tomatoes and handles like a fruit rollup. Cook it longer or get a cookie cutter and cut circles out of the sheet and bake at a slightly higher temperature and you’ve got tomato chips.

Unlike potato chips, these have zero fat, only as much salt as you put in (or that came in the can), and are darned tasty. For extra fun, add in exceptionally finely chopped basil before drying.

Delicious, healthy, and dirt cheap to make. Especially good if you like the taste of sun-dried tomatoes.

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Photo by: Christopher S. Penn

Prime Cuts TV: How to Dice a Tomato

Justin Levy — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 10:48:03 +0000

We have a very busy and long day ahead of us as we prepare for our Luigi Bosca wine dinner that we’re hosting at the steakhouse tonight. To follow up on our episode of Prime Cuts TV from Monday on how to properly use a sharpening steel, we thought we would bring you an episode showing you how to now use your newly sharpened knife to dice a tomato.

Tomatoes are something that can be a little tricky to cut especially if when you want don’t want any seeds in your dice. Well today we show you how to unzip a tomato and no, we haven’t started drinking any wine yet and yes we said, unzip a tomato.

Warning: Always be very careful when using a knife especially to dice vegetables as the blade can get wet causing the blade to slip or your grip on the vegetables to slip.

[viddler id=2f43bc1f&w=437&h=370]

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Fresh Fridays: Delicious Summer Tomato Salad

Justin Levy — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 12:40:37 +0000

The following salad is especially nice during the summer tomato months. Early summer it can be made with some of the smaller, earlier maturing types of tomatoes, even cherry or grape tomatoes if you prefer. Mid summer we like to use the classic beefsteak variety when they are in their full glory. At end of summer we like to use some of the more slow maturing heirloom types, such as Brandywine, Purple Cherokee, or Striped German.

As with any recipe you should always use whichever types you like best, just don’t be afraid to experiment, and remember when it comes to tomatoes, always try to buy local, seasonally, and to ensure maximum flavor – never refrigerate them. The bottom line is to make sure you buy quality ingredients especially the tomatoes because since it is a simple salad, the ingredients need to shine.

Ingredients

One big ol’ local summer time tomato (or the equivalent amount of smaller ones)

1tsp balsamic vinegar

1tsp extra virgin olive oil

Squeeze of lemon juice

Pinch fresh minced garlic

Pinch chopped parsley

Pinch kosher salt

Pinch fresh ground black pepper

Pinch dried oregano

Pinch sugar

1tsp toasted pine nuts

1tsp crumbled Gorgonzola

Small handful local baby field greens

Preparation

1. Slice tomato into 5-7 large slices

2. Combine all but last three ingredients, and toss to coat, let rest at room temp 10 min

3. Place tomato slices in an overlapped line on a long plate, reserving marinating liquid

4. In small bowl combine field greens, most of the pine nuts, and Gorgonzola, and dress with some of the reserved marinating liquid

5. Place dressed salad on center of plated tomato slices

6. Garnish with reserved pine nuts and Gorgonzola, and drizzle with little marinating liquid

7. Eat!

You can download a PDF version of this Delicious Summer Tomato Salad recipe.

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Photo by AskNetGuy