wisconsin tomatoes

We've been getting beautiful tomatoes from the farmer's market, the local co-op, and our CSA box. That means almost every meal uses tomatoes--I have to take advantage while they're available! By the way, you can freeze a whole tomato in a freezer bag. When you're ready to use a tomato in a sauce or pasta in the winter, just run the tomato under warm water until the skin slips off and chop it up. Oh, and it's not a bad idea to core the tomato before freezing.

caprese salad

Anyway, here's one of the meals I made with CSA tomatoes--a simple caprese salad. I snagged the recipe from Giada De Laurentis, but used balsamic vinegar in place of the lemon juice (we've had a lot of lemony dishes lately and needed a change). The fresh tomatoes grown nearby and ripened on the vine really make the salad. The basil was also from our CSA farm and the fresh mozzarella is made in southern Wisconsin as well. There will be more tomato recipes coming in the following days.

Edit: When you follow the link, you'll see a platter filled with tomatoes of all sizes and large slices of mozzarella. Since I only had grape tomatoes, I used those and tossed them with cherry-sized fresh mozzarella balls that I halved. In a nutshell, use whatever tomatoes you have available.