Thanks. (I 'd say it in Swedish, but I'm sure I'd misspell that also.
)
That's easy: "Tack," pronounced like "tuck."
Speaking of seasonal, we're about to get our garden in any day now. Fresh tomato recipes would be greatly appreciated if anybody has any favorites as we always have too many and I hate to can them. (I do make a lot of pico de gallo since we grow jalapenos as well.)
I love tomatoes. I can't get enough of them. Off the very top of my head, although I'm sure you know most of these:
* Caprese. Alternate slices of fresh tomato and mozzarella, add some fresh basil if you like, grate some pepper and salt on top, drizzle with olive oil and wine vinegar.
* Spaghetti crudaiolo. Cut your tomato into cubes about the size of a d6, add some cucumber also in cubes if you like, crush a clove of garlic into paste with salt and olive oil (and an anchovy, if you like), combine with freshly boiled spaghetti, grate black pepper and parmesan on top, garnish with basil.
* Tomato starter Moroccan style: slice tomatoes, chop lots of coriander, put tomatoes on a plate, the coriander on top, drizzle with olive oil, serve with flatbread.
* Lebanese breakfast: Drain some plain yogurt in a coffee filter to make labneh. Take some flatbread. Spread a generous amount of labneh in it. Add lots of fresh tomato, some slices of fresh cucumber, some very salty pickles if you like, drizzle olive oil, roll into a fajita-kind-of-thing, enjoy.
* Tomates farcies (stuffed tomatoes): Use nice, big tomatoes. Cut the tops off and remove the seeds. Stuff with… things. I like mushrooms and (boiled) rice, for example, with some herbs and pepper and things, but you can use ground meat or whatever too. Grate some cheese on top. Bake in an oven.
* Spaghetti puttanesca. (That means "spaghetti, whore style," by the way. I hear it's because the prostitutes in Naples were only let into the market when all the good people had done their shopping, so they had to make do with whatever's left.) Dice your tomatoes. Crush some garlic and some anchovies with salt and olive oil in a mortar. Saute the resulting paste on medium heat. Add the diced tomatoes, reduce. Add capers and black olives. Serve with spaghetti and grated parmesan.
* Soup. You can make just about any kind of soup from tomatoes. Make a paste of garlic, salt, olive oil, and whatever spices you like (black pepper and herbs for an Italian or Greek feel, chili for an Arrabiata kind of thing, tarragon if you want to go Serbian, fenugreek, saffron, and cumin for a Caucasian style, and so on). Saute the paste in olive oil on medium heat. Add veggies you want to sauté (e.g. onions, carrots, etc.). Add lots of diced tomatoes. Add some bouillon (veggie, chicken, meat, fish…). Add other good stuff you want to put in it: meat and bones, previously browned in the oven, early on; root veggies, grains, and suchlike a bit later; green vegetables toward the end, and seafood or fish just a few minutes before serving. You probably wouldn't want to put all of the above in one soup, but you get my drift.
* Baked tomato with tapenade. Cut the tomatoes in two, spread a nice layer of tapenade on top, bake in the oven, serve hot. If you don't have tapenade, you can make some — take some good olives (black or green), pit them, run them through a food processor (or equivalent), with a few anchovies.
* Carpaccio of tomato. Cut the tomatoes very very thin, arrange on a plate, drizzle with olive oil, grate some pepper on top, serve with bread on the side.
* Bruschetta with tomato. Peel the tomatoes (with the boiling water method), remove the seeds, and crush in a pestle (but not too finely). Rub some slices of bread with a half clove of garlic, spread the crushed tomato on top, sprinkle with a bit of salt, drizzle with olive oil, grill quickly in the oven. (Alternative: instead of using lots of crushed tomato, just rub them with a half of tomato after rubbing them with the garlic. The downside is that a good bit of the tomato goes to waste, and you don't use anywhere near as much tomato…)
* Pizza margherita. Make basic Italian tomato sauce: crush garlic into a paste with salt and herbs, sauté on medium heat, add peeled and diced tomatoes, reduce. If you have a stick mixer, you can use it to smooth it into a coulis (it's even prettier if you de-seed the tomatoes first). Spread onto a pizza crust that you've quickly pre-baked; return into the oven for a second round of baking. Take out, add slices of fresh tomato. Bake again. Then add grated cheese to taste, return to the oven, and bake until the cheese melts. (Of course, you can add other stuff too; I really like this very plain pizza, though.)
* Tabbouleh (Lebanese style): [
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/member/views/AUTHENTIC-LEBANESE-TABOULI-1219893 ]
* Taboulé (Moroccan style): [
http://www.certiferme.com/recette/recette-taboule-a-la-marocaine-1767.html ] (in French, but I'm pretty sure Google can handle the translation, it's not that difficult).
(N.b.: Lebanese tabbouleh and Moroccan taboulé are really completely different dishes, although the ingredients are similar. The Lebanese one is green and leafy with chunks of tomato and grains of burghul, while the Moroccan one is minty, lemony, garlicky, tomato-y couscous.)
Also, we've been growing Swiss chard the last few years, and the only way I've found to use it has been in soups, where it's very good. Are there any other good chard uses?
Fry it on a pan in olive oil with onions and garlic. It makes a very nice starter or side dish. The Lebanese often serve this as mezze (with the other sixteen dishes, of course). Uses a lot of it, though, since it shrinks big-time when cooking.