If you have a garden (or visit the farmers market) you’ve got to have a ton of tomatoes. Right? In addition to having a dog, part of our house-sitting duties were eating the food from the garden! Turns out, that is a very fun chore.

We had a drawer full of tomatoes and they needed to be eaten. Besides throwing them in salads, using them in summer crostini’s and roasting them I was kind of running out of ideas.

So like anyone, I turned to the internet for some tomato inspiration. Here are some of the favorite recipes I found…

market salad with goat cheese and champagne-shallot vinaigrette *photo credit

tomato-basil sauce with polenta

fresh corn and avocado salsa

heirloom tomato bloody mary

fresh tomato soup

white bean, garlic, and tomato salsa

garlic-basil grilled chicken with caprese salsa

canned heirloom tomatoes *photo credit

creole tomato salad

mozzarella and tomato sauce omelet

slow-braised tomatoes 

tomato, onion & gruyere bake

If you’ve got a favorite tomato recipe, please share below! 

PS. While we are on the topic of tomatoes…go read this post about fairly harvested tomatoes and send a message to grocery store chains demanding slave-free tomatoes. (It takes seconds!)

Otherwise known as pesto goat cheese with fresh tomatoes on….crostini.

I thought the latter was a little long.

Few things scream summer like garden-fresh tomatoes and flavorful pesto.

And few things taste as good as summer tomatoes and pesto made from a fresh bunch of basil. Or you know, pesto from a jar – sometimes convenience rules.

It is the combination that never gets old: basil, tomato and bread. Cheese never hurts.

This summer appetizer is great because it can be made ahead of time and then just compiled when you are ready for it. If you are short on time you can always buy pre-made crostini or use melba toasts.

And I totally used jarred pesto – I just didn’t tell.