Preserving: Pickled Farm-Stand Tomatoes with Jalapeños

This week's box includes:

• Red Beets
• Carrots
• Tomatoes
• Cilantro
• Cauliflower
• Baby Bear Pumpkin
• Strawberries
• Green Leaf Lettuce
• Corno di Toro Peppers

It has been weeks since I've posted and just as many weeks since I've cooked.  Changes at home, changes at work ... a very busy time.  This weekend brought a return to the pleasure of good food and good friends.  The past month, from a food perspective, has been more like this:

That is indeed one very neglected cantaloupe.  Sadly, many other fruits and vegetables headed for the compost pile over the past four weeks.  All I can say is that sometimes this happens...

Onto the good bits...

In honor of Talk Like a Pirate Day, we hosted a small group of friends for an early dinner. The grog and the grub were fantastic, as was the time with friends.  Some of our recipes included below.  Dinner included:

• Crudités (carrots, cauliflower and, Corno di Toro peppers) with Zucchini Cilantro Dip
• Grilled, Prosciutto-wrapped Grape Tomato Skewers
• Grilled Italian Sausages (vegan and not) with Pickled Farm-Stand Tomatoes with Jalapeños
• Green Leaf Lettuce Salad with Roasted Beets, Spiced Walnuts, and Balsamic Vinaigrette

Friends brought gougère, chickpea salad, beet/carrot/avocado salad, miniature tartes, and wild boar chorizo.

The three "volunteer" cherry tomato plants we have in our backyard are in full season. Today we harvested nearly two gallons, last weekend was the same.

These plants, two grape tomatoes and one standard cherry, are downright prodigious.

There is simply no way we can keep up with the number of tomatoes these plants are producing.  To top it off, most recipes for preserving tomatoes call for peeling and seeding them ~ not reasonable given the size and number of tomatoes we have to deal with...

After a bit of research following my usual methods, we landed on Pickled Farm-Stand Tomatoes with Jalapeños, as mentioned above.  We subbed cherry tomatoes for the sliced tomatoes called for in the recipe ~ it was fantastic.  Also worth noting these hold for far longer than 3 days.

The key is paring these complex and intense pickles with something relatively simple and high in fat with lots of bread for sopping up the juices.  The combination of the spices, the vinegar, and the sweetness of the tomatoes begs for an uncomplicated, yet sturdy, backdrop.