I thought about it briefly, and decided there's no graceful way to explain an 8 year absence in posting to this blog, so I'm not even going to try.
Recently some of my longtime blogging friends have started a project to cook with seasonal ingredients and post biweekly. The group is called Good Friends Good Food, and every two weeks on a Friday the group posts recipes featuring that week's ingredient. They invited me to join them, and I thought I'd give it a go.
This week's ingredient is tomatoes.
Isn't summer produce the best? I know that it's now technically autumn, but I want to savor the summer flavors as long as my farm box has them available. And here in the southern US the gardens are still going strong.
One of my favorite recipes for beautifully ripe tomatoes is this recipe for Tomato and Cheese Cobbler from Epicurious. Tomatoes, cheddar cheese, thyme, and black pepper make for a great combination of flavors. The dish is a wonderful side for simply grilled or roasted meat, and with a green vegetable or salad you have a beautiful meal. This recipe has earned a spot in the regular rotation of summer cooking at our house.
n.o.e. notes:
- This recipe is perfect if you have a bounty of tomatoes to use.
- Once you drain a little excess moisture from the tomatoes, the assembly is a snap.
- You can make the biscuits ahead of time, keep them cold in the fridge, and pop them on top just before you bake the cobbler.
- I made a gluten-free version of the biscuits by using King Arthur Flour's Measure for Measure flour.
- I used my biscuit/scones butter trick: I freeze the stick of butter and then grate it frozen and add to the dry ingredients. It keeps the butter cold and helps prevent over-handling of the dough.
- You can use a round biscuit/cookie cutter or a straight sided drinking glass to cut the biscuits. The secret to tall biscuits is to NOT twist the cutter - just use a straight up and down motion. If you twist, you will seal the edges and the biscuits will not rise to their true and rightful height.
- I love making this dish in a cast iron skillet
- While the recipe definitely tastes best right from the oven, we are always happy to have it as leftovers.
Here are links to the other tomato posts from the Good Friends, Good Food group: