Wednesday, September 3, 2014

A Simple Tomato Tart to Use My Garden "Bounty"

Gardening is hard, okay?  

I mean, okay.  I'm not saying it's rocket science or anything.  People have been growing their own food for centuries, and mother nature does a good chunk of the hard work for you.  But it's still a learned skill, and it takes practice to get it right. 

So let's just say, I'm grateful that I'm not forced to feed myself purely from my garden right now, because I would probably starve.  But I am grateful for the opportunity to have a garden and to learn skills that may someday feed my family. 

Anyway.  Why am I waxing philosophical about gardening right now?

Because I successfully nurtured a tomato plant that yielded...wait for it....three tomatoes.  One of which was eaten by an extremely large caterpillar before I could use it. 

So here I was, intrepid young blogger, hungry and staring down a largely empty kitchen.  What in the world can I make with two tomatoes that will feed a pair of hungry people tonight? 

As it turns out, I could make an egg-and-tomato pie


It's been a while, and I wasn't paying attention to ingredients so much as dumping things in from the fridge that needed to be used.  But I do recall it using six eggs, two slices of bread (toasted, and crumbled into breadcrumbs), my two brave tomatoes, and half of an onion.  I laid down the bread crumbs and layered up the tomatoes and the onions, then went diving into my refrigerator looking for help.  As luck would have it, I had some sun-dried tomatoes lingering in the back of the shelf that I hadn't gotten around to using, so I plopped those in too.  I also had a little bit of feta cheese that I added in. 

I beat my eggs, poured them over the top, liberally seasoned with salt, pepper and fresh basil from my garden, baked it until it was firm, and bam -- eggy, tomatoey goodness. 

Half the key to eating on a budget is learning to put together meals from what you have on hand. 

So how about you guys -- any fun culinary adventures you've had lately that showcase your ingenuity?  I want to hear about it!

No comments:

Post a Comment