First tomatoes of the season

These are first three tomatoes that I harvested on July 20th. The pinkish brandywine weighed 13 oz. San Marzano plum tomato was 3 1/2 oz while green zebra weighted 2 1/4 oz. We made burgers that day and sliced up the brandywine tomato and stacked it up between the bun and the patty. It is exciting to have a slicing tomato from the back yard!
By Wednesday (July 23) I had another plum tomato. Using all the first tomatoes, I made a simple salad for the craft night gathering. The recipe is from The San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market Cookbook, which features beautiful photos of produce, stories of farmers, and awesome recipes. I simplified the recipe (the original involves frying up some of the shallot).

• Red wine vinegar: olive oil = 1:3. Add sliced shallot to the mixture and season with salt and pepper. Set it aside.
  
• Slice fresh tomatoes.
• When you are ready to eat, mix the vinaigrette with the tomatoes, and scatter fresh basil leaves. Serve.

Couldn't be simpler. For mine, I adjusted the vinegar and oil ratio close to 1:2 after tasting the mixture. I had to add a little more salts after mixing the vinaigrette with the tomatoes too. Shannon was sitting in front of me tasting the food so it was easier to adjust (I love talented food tasters!) Always taste and season as needed.

Tomatoes are coming slowly and I like this pace - we can eat them as they come. We just had a first Belgian tomato which Dan added to a smoked trout chowder soup. I used a brandywine tomato to chiken tikka masala. When we feel like, we make this dish from scratch but we also have a favorite brand which makes pretty good frozen chicken tikka masala. We usually add extra ingredients if using the frozen one and this time I added fresh onions, fingerling potatoes (from the farmers market), yellow squash and the tomato (from my garden), and some pan-fried tofu. Yum.

A couple more weeks of the Summer will bring lots of ripe tomatoes and I will happily worry about what to do with them. Till then, I will continue to weigh each tomato and cherish one after another.