By: Steve “Mo” Fye, Copy Chief | Photos By: Steve “Mo” Fye
“Cooking In Season” is a monthly column designed to help students learn to cook using locally available ingredients. Look for the next installment on squash in issue nine.


Students lucky enough to have the time to garden are likely inundated with tomatoes right now. Even those who are too busy for a garden probably have friends who are growing tomatoes and have a plethora of the lovely, juicy beauties.
Like zucchini and yellow summer squashes, tomatoes tend to give their fruits all at once, leaving gardeners with so much produce that they will push it on anyone who stands still long enough to accept a bagful.
That leaves the question of what to do with the bounty when it all hits at once. There are nearly endless uses for this beautiful gift of nature.
A way to take this staple vegetable (yes, technically tomatoes are fruits, but all fruits are vegetables, while not all vegetables are fruits) to a higher level of elegance is to make an “Insalata Caprese.”
In the simplest form, this “Salad in the style of Capri” is just sliced fresh tomatoes with slices of buffalo Mozzarella cheese and fresh basil, drizzled with olive oil. This easy recipe can be dramatically flavorful when made with garden-fresh tomatoes, basil just trimmed from the plant and a good Mozzarella and extra virgin olive oil.
There are many ways to tweak the recipe: Drizzle some fine balsamic vinegar on top; finish with a nice vinaigrette; or stack the cheese on thick slices of tomato and broil just until the cheese starts to brown and garnish with finely chopped basil.
Continue reading “Cooking in Season: Tomatoes” →