The Empty Nest Kitchen

Small Bites: Summer Tomatoes (How to Choose, Use, and Store)

• Christine Van Bloem • Season 2 • Episode 46

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Let's kick-off the summer cooking series 'Small Bites', focusing on short episodes under 15 minutes. Each week will highlight a different food or technique, starting with summer tomatoes, covering tips on choosing, using, and storing them for optimum flavor. 

00:00 Introduction to Summer Cooking Series

00:57 Choosing the Perfect Summer Tomatoes

03:09 Storing Your Tomatoes Correctly

04:00 Simple and Delicious Tomato Recipes

06:28 Making the Perfect Panzanella

11:47 Roasting Tomatoes for Extra Flavor

12:46 Conclusion and Upcoming Episodes



Well, happy summer. I am so thrilled to be back this summer. I have a fantastic series that's gonna change the way you are cooking. I'm calling it small bites, and each week I'm going to have a little shorty episode for you that includes 15 minutes or less focusing in on a single ingredient or technique here to make your summer better. So. We've gotta naturally start at the beginning, right? And talk about summer tomatoes, and we wanna talk about how to choose, use and store them because they're just little things we wanna do to make sure that our tomatoes are showing off the best they can. Now, here in the Mid-Atlantic, I'm in Maryland, we just pulled our first two early girls. Off the vine, which I'm so thrilled about. And I asked my husband, do you think you pulled him a little early? He said, no, I beat the squirrels. And I thought that was awesome because we have fat, fat squirrels hanging out in our backyard, and they love to go and take one bite of everything that we have. So he beat the squirrels, they'll vine. They won't vine ripen. They'll ripen on the windowsill. But when you are looking for a tomato, what? Are you looking for? Can you just trust that it's the summer and they're good? Well, you can to a point, but when you are choosing a tomato, whether you're at your grocery store or a farm stand, it doesn't matter. We want. To pick a tomato that has really rich, rich color, no matter what it is, and I'm a big fan of using all of the funky heirloom tomatoes. I love the purple Cherokees. I love the sunrise that have the yellow and the orange. I love all sorts of neat, funky tomatoes, but they should not only have like a rich color for what they are. But they should feel heavy. Your tomatoes should feel laden, right? You don't wanna pick up a light tomato and go, yeah, that's perfect. No, no. You want that sucker to be heavy.'cause if it's heavy, it's juicy. It's gonna be so good for you. So. I definitely want a good bright color and a heavy for its size tomato, trust me. And you can pick'em all up. You can do that. You can give it a little gentle squeeze. But we are not trying to put our thumb through it, right? We want just that very gentle yield to it. The way you know an avocado is ripe. And if you can do that perfect, you are in good shape. And when you get them home, where should they go? Always on the counter. Never in the fridge. Fridge is going to give you mealy tomatoes, and those are no good. Right. You've had that sandwich with a slice of tomato on it that's been in the fridge and it's all just kind of gross. Exactly. We are not messing around with this. So we wanna keep those tomatoes out on the countertop. That's where they belong. Keep'em away from the fridge. Definitely the freezer, unless you're cooking them, do what you do. But that's how we want to go. We wanna make sure we're not putting a chill on'em. We want them just to rest in all of their meaty, juicy, goodness waiting to be used now. How are you gonna use them? Couple of ways. Really simple. I, I do think, and I'll bet you'll agree here, I do think the goal of summer cooking is to keep it as simple as possible, right? Like, just don't screw it up by trying to do too much to it. This is not where we're gonna guild the Lilly, right? We wanna keep it really, really easy. A lot of times I just wanna chop up tomatoes. And go with them that way. And I was never a tomato girl. Lots of, uh, daddy issues there because my dad would have a, you know, my mom would do the plate of sliced tomatoes in the middle of the summer, and my dad would always go, Chrissy, there's nothing better than a ripe tomato. And I was always like, that is disgusting, because I was a crazy picky eater. And also if my dad forced me to eat it, I then would never want to eat it. Hello to the seventies and eighties. Mm. So I'm still not a tomato on a sandwich. Girl. Can't do it. Uh, maybe if it's a caprice, I can do it, but it's just, I like'em in chunks and I think about it this way. I'll eat a salsa. Right, like you should be making a pico deo with salsa, excuse me, with tomatoes and cilantro and maybe a jalapeno if you grow it or your nice neighbor does. Little red onion if you've got it. Easy breezy lemon squeezy, right? Put a little squeeze of lime juice, so limey, squeezy on there. And salt and pepper. You are great, right? You're all set up. I also love, you know, a typical bruschetta, always. It's so good. Fresh basil, fresh onion, red onion, whatever you want. Tomatoes, little balsamic, little salt and pepper. And let me tell you, when it comes to tomatoes in the summer, I am all about that crunchy salt. Right. I am all about the crunchy stuff. That is what I want. I want my mal and salt, and you can go back and listen. One of my first episodes is all about salt. It'll tell you everything you need to know. But treat yourself to a box of Malden salt, white box, green lettering. It's in the British isle of your grocery store. Treat yourself to that. You will be really happy with it. Um, but I love a simple bruschetta. I also love a panzanella. Now if you know panzanella, you know it's basically a bread and tomato salad, and sometimes people are like, I don't like squishy bread, I don't like wet bread, and I totally respect that. So you don't have to have it be aggressively. Wet right. Here's what I do. I will make a red wine vinegarette really simple, little bit of Dijon, little bit of red wine vigor, whisk it together, some salt and pepper, and then some olive oil stream in that olive oil while you're whisking. It'll help it all. Stay together. Then I'll throw in tomatoes, maybe a little mint, garlic torn, or basil that's in a chiffonade, which is when we stack up the leaves and then we slice them. Because you never wanna chop basil. It makes it turn all black. It's kind of gross. So either tear it into big pieces, which I love because it looks kind of rustic and cool. Or do that shiff a nod if you're feeling chefy. We call it a shiff. All right, now. I throw that in and I let those tomatoes give up some of their juices. I also always throw in a cucumber. I hated cucumbers my whole life and now I can't get enough of them. And I really like the hot house cucumbers, the English cucumbers, they come into plastic, uh, wrapping and you always feel a little naughty when you're unwrapping it. I had to learn in classes, unwrap it before the class. Otherwise you just. It just gets giggles from everywhere. But I'll take half of one of those, or if I'm feeling feisty, the whole thing, but again, I'm trying to make only what I'm going to eat because I don't really want to put those tomatoes in the fridge. This is never gonna be as good the second day if you've put in the fridge and we gotta do the fridge for food safety stuff, right? So only as much as I'm going to eat maybe half a cucumber in there and then. I grab some bread. Now, my big trick as an Empty nester, I deserve good bread. I deserve good food. Just because I can't eat an entire loaf of bread, well, I could, but just because I'm not going to eat an entire loaf of bread doesn't mean I shouldn't get the good stuff. I also don't wanna waste it, so typically I will either have them slice it at the bakery of a wonderful sourdough bakery here in town that's been open about six months. Holy banana or bread is incredible. But it's$12 for a loaf. I don't want to eat three slices and then have to chuck the thing, so I'll slice it or I'll have them slice it. If I slice it, I'll slice it into thicker pieces and put it into the freezer the same day that I buy it, I eat what I want, and then it goes in the freezer, and then I've got that good crusty. Yummy bread ready for my tomatoes, right? So I take that bread, I will cube it, and then I'll toast it either in the air fryer or in the oven. Now an air fryer is the secret summer weapon in my mind, and I am not, um, an appliance freak right at all. I steer clear of lots of them, but I do love a pressure cooker and I do love an air fryer. An air fryer solely because it's tiny and it will not heat up your entire kitchen. I have a regular size oven. I heat that up to 400 degrees. I'm in a super old house. It is going to heat up the kitchen, it's going to heat up the dining room, all of those things. So I love to use my air fryer and I think an air fryer, which doesn't fry at all. It's just a convection oven, right? But an air fryer is so good for an Empty nester. I really. Cannot recommend one strongly enough. If you need a recommendation, let me know. You can just come to me through social media. Um, on Facebook. I'm Empty Nest Kitchen and on Instagram, I'm the Empty Nest Kitchen. But you can drop me a message or a comment and I will get back to you with one I love because it's got racks in it and holy cow, it's so good. I can make a whole dinner for two of us without heating up the whole kitchen, and I love that. So back to my panzanella. I've got that tomato salad mixture right going, and then I've got toasted bread cubes. I've cubed that bread. I might have tossed it with a little olive oil and then I throw those in right before serving. Now, this is not a salad you can save, right? Because that bread is going to absorb all of. All of the liquid. So I like to, you can even serve the salad and then put the croutons, crouton ish. Right? We don't want'em totally crunchy. I want'em to still have a little give, um, but I'll toss that together. Really, really good stuff. Okay. So you can see our vibe here is don't do too much. Now, speaking of doing too much last night, I may have taken. Some grape tomatoes I had and roasted them in the oven. Uh, I roast them until they burst at 400 degrees. I put a couple of garlic cloves in the paper on there. Nice gug of olive oil, salt, pepper, about 20, 25 minutes. Threw those into a mini food processor, which is perfect again for your Empty nesters.'cause it all goes right in the dishwasher. I used a little, um, pasta water. I made some pasta here. I squeezed the garlic cloves in a little bit. Pasta water to thin it out. Perfection per. Affection and if you roast tomatoes, roast as may as you can, store'em in the fridge and some olive oil, they will be so yummy. They'll last you a couple of days, add some fresh thyme if you're feeling Frenchy, add some basil, add whatever makes you feel good. But those make a whole bunch, and once they've cooked, you can pop'em in the fridge. So. Got tomato questions. Wanna know what to do with your tomatoes, or do you have a favorite way that you make tomatoes in the summer? I'd love it if you'd let me know. Now, tune back next week because every week till the end of summer, you're gonna have a small bite just for you. All right, until next time, I'll see you in the kitchen.