FIFTEEN : TOMATO PARTY

PLENTY

SEPTEMBER 12 2012

FIFTEEN : TOMATO PARTY

It's a par-tay in the hizzle and everyone's invited! Yep, even you green tomato. And two kinds of couscous are on the guest list. Now, somebody turn up those bangin' beats while I get to work!

 Mr. O wants to keep this party interesting by including tomatoes in various states of cooked-ness "to maximize the 'tomatoey' effect with diverse flavors and textures". I like this idea as tomatoes offer such different profiles when raw vs roasted vs dried. I am also going to take him up on his offer to "choose whatever tomato selection you can get" instead of sticking exactly to those listed in the recipe.

I recently dried a bunch of cherry tomatoes so those are definitely going in. And I think I'll roast some of the Early Girls while keeping the Green Zebras and San Marzanos raw. Good plan!

garden fresh!

Early Girls sliced and ready to roast with a sprinkle of sugar

"roasting" tomatoes on the grill

First hurdle... my darn oven is broken. So I'll improvise by "roasting" tomatoes in foil on the grill. Seems to be working fine, just hope they don't burn. Now to the couscouses (or couscoui?). I didn't really want to deal with finding Sardinian fregola so opted for the Israeli couscous as the second version. Each are cooked separately and left to cool. 

Supposedly this recipe makes 4 servings... but this is turning out to be a whole lot of couscous. Again Mr. O's proportions seems to be wack-o! Oh well. Tomatoes are roasted and time to toss everything together. Combine the couscouses with all varieties of tomato and chopped herbs. The juices from the tomatoes contribute the only dressing on the salad, which worries me a little. But, one bite reveals their offering to be more than enough flavor and moisture. 

I really, really like the textural interest created by the two couscous varieties. And the tomato flavor is pronounced without taking over everything, allowing the herbs to sing. My biggest complaint is with the roasted tomatoes. They are so huge (Mr. O simply having me quarter them before roasting) and make for a gloppy bite when one of them is forked up. Next time, I would probably seed and roughly chop them then saute lightly until just caramelized before stirring into the salad.

Overall yummy though! Good thing I like it as I'll be eating left-overs for a while...