Giverny Tomatoes

Named after Giverny France, these tomatoes give a nod to a dish Dorie had at Éric Guéerin’s Le Jardin des Plumes. She raved the tomatoes were candied, cooked in oil…and were not only delicious, but beautiful too.

Our tomatoes are peeled, cored, and placed in a baking dish. The centers are filled with lime zested sugar, the outsides coated with olive oil and then baked at 200 degrees for 2-3 hours…basting along the way. Not ideal for a summer day, but I tried to pick the coolest day of the forecast haha. The recipe can be multiplied easily to make as many as you need. I did half, and made two.

The tomatoes, topped with Fleur de sel and pepper, can be served warm, room temperature, or chilled making them very versatile and easy to make ahead if need be. We had ours alongside salmon, and after tasting them on their own, used them cut up with avocado as a sort of relish or topping for the fish.

My husband is a tomato lover so I knew he would enjoy these….they were pretty too. He said they were interesting and intriguing but ultimately very lime forward…strangely enough, I omitted the optional lime oil extract 😳 can’t imagine if I had used that too on top of the zest haha. I feel like they were better cut up and eaten with something rather than on their own. My husband said although good, not great and he wouldn’t be craving them to have again.

An interesting dish to try, but I don’t think will be repeated.

Honey-Mustard Salmon Rillettes

Well, this was amazing.

Basically a salmon spread made with both smoked salmon and salmon filet, mixed together with green onion, shallot, mayonnaise, butter, lemon juice, honey, Dijon mustard, and capers. (You can also add cilantro and dill)

This gets chilled in the fridge for a minimum of 6 hours and then, eaten with crackers or bread.

I toasted some cut baguette and we ate this for, what seemed like, a fancy lunch. This was an absolute hit and will be repeated. This would be worthy of using as an appetizer for entertaining. So good!

This was so flavorful and fresh tasting, and not hard to make…just some planning required for the chill.

This one is a keeper!

Double-Corn Tomato Crisp

This is a side dish you can use all year long…with vegetables either at their peak in the summer, or with some frozen corn and tomatoes not at their best in the winter…it doesn’t matter…this will be delicious either way.

We weren’t sure what to expect on this one, but you know what, this was really good! We were also thinking…the salad/filling part would be delicious raw as a topper on some fish. We do a similar one with tomatoes, avocado, and corn…but this one has a nice balsamic dressing as well.

The crisp has two parts: the filling made up of corn, tomatoes, onion, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, honey, salt, pepper, herbs, and cayenne…and then the top has flour, cornmeal, sugar, salt, and butter.

The filling is stirred and placed in the baking dish, and the combined topping is dropped by clumps on top. The whole thing is popped in the oven for about 45 min. Probably not ideal for hot summer weather, but honestly, even with the baking this would still be a good idea for a side…for the family or entertaining.

The dish is rested out of the oven until just warm. We had ours alongside Mahi, and we thought it a perfect pairing. It is unusual, but something about it is very intriguing and keeps you coming back for more. My husband enjoyed some of the leftovers for lunch the next day, and he thought it was even better the second day after the flavors melded together.

I feel like I would make this again…and for sure will try the filling raw on some fish next time!

This one is a keeper!

Strawberry Cheesecake-Chocolate No-Bake Pie

Here’s a pie that harbors secrets.

Dorie Greenspan

When I read Dorie’s intro when starting this bake, her line about this pie having secrets didn’t really stand out to me. But now having made it, it truly is the best opening line.

This is the most unassuming pie…by the title, the ingredients, the look. I don’t know. I just wasn’t prepared for the RAVING reviews this “unassuming” pie received. Like for real. Somehow this no-bake, put together and chill..pie was launched,

“ to the top group of all the bakes we have done”,

by everyone who tasted it. 👀

I love when this happens. No one expected it and one by one everyone, on their own, came to the same conclusion.

The pie was a welcome relief with virtually no baking since we are in the midst of hot summer…with days and weeks of upper 90’s. I went ahead and made a graham cracker crust from scratch which did require a very short bake. You can opt to buy the crust and make this truly a no bake and super easy dessert.

After cooling the crust, you make a dark chocolate ganache which is smoothed along the bottom of the crust…the first secret 😂

Next, strawberries are cut in half and placed on top of the chilled ganache…next secret.

The last step before final assembly is to make the cheesecake filling. I would use the term cheesecake loosely, as all of my tasters said this was more of a whipped dessert than dense cheesecake. The filling consists of cream cheese, sugar, sour cream, whipped heavy cream…and I think the third secret, melted white chocolate. All of this gets mixed together and smoothed on top of the strawberries. You can leave it plain or top with strawberries or shaved chocolate.

My husband tried this first and really surprised me with how much he loved this. At first I thought he was joking haha. But as the family/friends got theirs and reported back…all the same reaction. Everyone loved the combo of everything together: the chocolate chunk of ganache on the bottom, the strawberries, and lastly the light, sweet, whipped topping.

“Delightful”…and a winner in our group! This one is a keeper!

Tomato And Berry Gazpacho

We have never had Gazpacho…in fact I looked it up: of Spanish origin, usually uses tomato and cucumber, amongst other ingredients, and is meant to be eaten cold to cool you down and also hydrate you with all those water filled vegetables that are included.

Well…along with most of the US, we are currently in the midst of a pretty intense heat wave so I think we were looking forward to a cold soup meant to cool us down and hydrate us haha. I liked that there was no cooking involved! Everything in a blender and voilà…into the fridge it goes for a minimum of two hours, preferably overnight.

Our gazpacho is slightly different as it’s main two ingredients are tomato and strawberry. To that you also add ginger, scallions, mint, basil, lime juice, olive oil, sherry vinegar, and hot sauce…this is meant to be spicy. All of this is blended together…it really couldn’t be easier.

I let it sit over night and chill for the next day’s dinner. I think we had high hopes to try something new. As we were tasting it, my husband said he thought it was going to taste like a good Spicy Bloody Mary, which he loves, and instead ended up with a Mint Julep which he is not such a fan…hahaha.

The mint was by far the strongest flavor, and not in a good way. We both agreed we would have liked to have tasted this without the mint because over all it has promise. Not a winner with us, but at least now we can say we have tried gazpacho!