Tomato Ice Cream

I've been talking about making a tomato ice cream all summer. Reactions are split down the middle. Half of my friends and colleagues think that it would be a delightfully refreshing summer treat (their exact words). The other half look puzzled and say "that's weird." If "weird" is the most negative comment I can get, then why not try it? And, seriously, it's a lot less weird than some of the ice cream flavors that I've been reading about this summer. Government cheese ice cream? Um, no thank you.

After deciding that I was definitely going to make this ice cream, I did some research. My go to is The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz. No tomato ice cream recipe!?! Unthinkable. I had to go online. One word sums up my search: gross. I was on my own. So, here's what I came up with:

2 lbs beefsteak tomatoes

1 cup whole milk

1/3 cup sugar

1 pinch of kosher salt

Peel and chop the tomatoes. Add all of the ingredients to a blender. Whiz! Strain the mixture into a bowl:

Freeze in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.

Simple. But when you don't know what you're doing, simple is usually best. My reaction: "what a delightfully refreshing summer treat!" The spouse's reaction: "that's weird." You can't win them all. But, I do plan to eat a scoop with a little cheesecake.

Tomato Flatbread (sort of)

I set out to make a tomato flatbread this week. I had good intentions, and a flatbread seemed like something I could make in my kitchen, especially since flatbreads are made without yeast. You see, I am afraid of yeast. It all started when I tried to impress the spouse with Hot Cross Buns on Easter. Disaster. I am not sure what is in those little packets, but we are not friends. Instead of delicious, plump, pull-apart, lick-the-dough-around-my-tongue, buns, I got cinnamon-sugar rocks. In short, the spouse was not impressed.

Things being what they are, though, I did not have the time or the inclination to make the flatbread this week. What is a girl to do? Buy pre-made stuff! I snooped around the upscale market in my neighborhood. They always have fancy-pantsy things. And voila! A packaged pizza crust! Wrapped in plastic! With drawings meant to evoke Italy! Using words like "stone ground"! Genius.

The "flatbread" followed:

1 tbsp olive oil

1 large beefsteak tomato

1 red cipollini onion, sliced or chopped

2 ounces goat cheese

basil leaves

sea salt

pepper

Remove the crust from the package (already I love this). Brush olive oil over the crust. Cut tomato into slices. Lay slices on the crust. Sprinkle with onion, cheese and basil leaves. Season with the salt and pepper. Pop it into the oven, and bake according to package directions.

The spouse's reaction: "This is the best pizza I've ever had." That's why we've been married for five years. Also, he's probably right. Just saying.

Stuffed Tomatoes

I saw Giada De Laurentiis make herb stuffed tomatoes on the Food Network a couple years ago. At the time, I was not a fan of beefsteak tomatoes. They seemed pretty bland, and in my experience, they were almost always mealy. But, Giada's tomatoes came out of the oven bursting with color. Little red orbs with a crunchy golden topping freckled with bright parsley and cheese. I decided that I had to try it one day.

That day was yesterday, but of course I changed it up a bit. Instead of stuffing my beefsteak tomatoes with parsley and provolone, I used Italian sausage and Parmigiano-Reggiano. I could have eaten at least ten of them, but I only made four halves, two for me and two for the spouse (though the toddler eats bacon, pernil, and other pork products, she does not fully understand the joy of sausage).

Sausage Stuffed Tomatoes

2 Italian sausage links

1/4 tsp dried oregano

2 beefsteak tomatoes

1/2 cup panko

1/4 cup (or so) Parmigiano-Reggiano (okay, I didn't measure)

2 sprigs fresh oregano

Remove sausage from the casings and brown in a small skillet. Add dried oregano and cook, stirring, for about a minute. Place cooked sausage in a medium bowl and set aside.

While the sausage cools slightly, cut the tomatoes in half. Hollow out the insides to form four cups, reserving the tomato pulp. Chop the pulp and add to the bowl with the sausage along with the panko and cheese. Chop the fresh oregano and add it to the mixture.

Place the tomato halves into a buttered dish. Fill each half with the sausage-panko mixture. It will look like this:

Bake in a 375-degree oven for about 20 minutes until browned. There's no picture of that because we ate them immediately and without restraint. Delicious.

Tomatoes!

I recently spent a lovely Saturday afternoon at the Union Square Greenmarket with the toddler and the spouse. If you don't have kids, then you don't know that this is a real treat. Why? Well, it's a huge production.

You plan to leave at 9:00 a.m. but inevitably, after battling tantrums, diaper disasters, oatmeal bombs, and ill-timed naps, your outing begins around noon. Normally, a noon start isn't so bad, but that is the beginning of prime local-food hipster time on a Saturday. The local-food hipster prides him/herself on knowing, and tasting, the differences between Columbia-county raised pigs and Washington-county pigs, grain-feed beef and grass-fed beef, cultivated mushrooms and wild mushrooms. You get the gist. They love the farmers' market, but they also love sleeping in after doing whatever it is hipsters do at night. They tend to dislike strollers, preferring slings and other carrier-contraptions. Perhaps as a result, they do not step aside for strolling children, forcing the toddler and the spouse to experience the Greenmarket very, very, very slowly. This makes both the toddler and the spouse cranky. Not good since they are usually already annoyed by the subway trip to Union Square (though the spouse is getting nice arms from carrying that "lightweight" Maclaren up and down the stairs), and one or the other is probably hungry, thirsty, tired, or otherwise uncomfortable.

So, imagine my surprise when no one complained, cried, or had an unexplained meltdown on our latest trip into the belly of the beast. Everyone was in such a good mood that I joyfully sampled jams, cheese, bread, and fruit without being told to hurry up or without hearing any whining. Truly amazing. Moreover, the spouse did not even look embarrassed when I engaged several folks in conversations about ripeness, recipes, and the such.

It was during one such conversation that I noticed Gail Simmons next to me buying some tomatoes. Me and Gail at the same tomato stand? Too much. Of course, I bought everything that she did. Yellow something or other and some funky striped cherry tomatoes. Who can remember what they were called? The toddler, the spouse and I ate them all within a few hours, and that exceptional day inspires the tomato edition of the Last Gasp of Summer Series.

This week, I'll try making stuffed tomatoes, a tomato flatbread, gazpacho, and, of course, tomato ice cream. In the meantime, you can get your (heirloom) tomato, Greenmarket fix courtesy of New York Magazine.