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Its Saturday, a workday like any other, and yet the kids and I still have to eat even when we are busy. We also have to feed our souls. Here is the ultimate solution to the busy summer lunch - a tomato sandwich.

Now it is not even worth beginning without fresh tomatoes straight from the garden, so warm and full of sunlight that they are about to burst. Choose one that is almost too ripe, so soft that it start to split just from the pressure of picking it. Be careful it doesn't fall off the vine as you reach for it. At this point of the season, the variety of the tomato hardly matters - Brandywine, Radiator Charlie's Mortgage Lifter, a Lemonboy or Cherokee Purple, even those unidentified generic 'tomato' plants you picked up down at the local WallyWorld and planted amongst the weeds off the back deck. What matters here is the ripeness and your awareness and appreciation of the imminent end of summer.

Pick your bread. It should be soft and absorbent to pick up all the juices that are welling out of that perfect tomato. A good choice is my Daily Bread, or even some of that store bought white stuff. This might be the only real use for that stuff. Don't try to get all fancy and use a crusty artisan bread here, don't even toast it. It has just got to be soft.

Butter just one slice, preferably with Homemade Butter, but again, since the tomato is the star, you might cheat a little and still get a good result, but only if you have to. This is to be the top of your sandwich. You may add a bit of mayo here too if you like, and sometimes I do, especially if I have recent made it and have a little left, but its not absolutely necessary.

Now lay your bottom slice of bread on a plate close to your cutting board and prepare to slice that beautiful fruit. Use the sharpest knife you have, with smooth serrations if necessary, and try to preserve that precious juice. Try not to smash your tomato as most of the flavor is in the juice not the flesh as some folks may seem to think. Let them think it and keep the juice for yourself, summer is too short to argue. If you lose precious juices onto your cutting board carefully pour them onto you bread before arranging you slices of tomato. Afix the top slice and enjoy. Savor. Mop up any excess juice with more bread, and wash the works down with cold milk, Fresh Farm Milk.

Repeat.




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Makes 2 crusts - enough for top and bottom

* 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 tsp salt
* 1 tsp sugar
* 2 sticks chilled butter, (about a cup if homemade) cut into pieces, unsalted



1. Mix the flour, salt and sugar in a medium-size bowl. Cut in the butter with a pastry blender, and work it until mixture resembles coarse meal.
2. Add 3-4 TBS ice water and work with hands until dough comes together. careful here! Add the ice water slowly as the amount needed will vary with the day, temperature humidity, and some ineffible quality you may hope to someday feel (at least I do). If the dough is still dry and crumbly, add more ice water a tablespoon at a time (up to 4 more tablespoons), but do not overwork because that will make the pastry tough.
3. Divide dough in half, and flatten both halves into disks. Wrap disks separately in plasticand toss in the fridge at least an hour or so.
4. To form the pie shell, roll the dough on a floured surface. Roll it a bit bigger than your pie pan to allow for the sides, loosen with a thin spatula and wrap around your rolling pin and carefully unroll into a 9-inch pie pan. Allow any excess to just hang hopefully about an inch or so.
5. Push gently into bottom and sides of pan.
6. Add your filling and repeat with the other crust. Crimp a rim with fingertips and knuckle to seal. This is a lost art, and I hope you can do a neater job than I can. Aesthetics aside make it reasonably tight so that your pie doesn't leak.

Bake your pie according the directions for the filling, maybe half an hour or so at 425. Watch as it browns. If baking empty (blind) for later filling, bake at 425 or 450 with pie weights or beans inside fro maybe 20 minutes, the remove the weights, poke the bottom with a fork in a few places, and bake for another 5 minutes or so until a nice golden brown.











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Click on the Links Below to get an idea of what I am cooking now.


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Breads

Butter

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Morels and Noodles

Pastry Crust - All Butter

Soups

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