Tomatoes are the best. They’re one of the most widely used ingredients in Western cooking, because they’re both plentiful and versatile. The whole “are they a fruit or a vegetable?’ thing is endlessly confusing (fruit, for the record), but really, who cares? Personally, I think they’re more delicious, crave-worthy, and interesting than any other fruit or vegetable.
As a kid, I bit into tomatoes like apples. As a tween, I snacked on cherry tomatoes from the fridge so often that they rarely made it into the salads my mom intended them for. At the end of a weeklong trip to Amsterdam in my early 20s that was particularly lacking in healthy stuff and heavy on other not-so-healthy stuff, I called my friend in Germany, my next destination, to ask if she could please have a bowl of fresh, raw tomatoes ready for me when I got to her apartment the next day. I can’t explain it, other than to tell you that at that moment, it felt like the only thing that could bring me back to life after a week of, well, Amsterdam, was a perfectly juicy tomato.
All of this is to say, tomatoes are great any time, in almost anything. But they’re especially great in the summertime, when it’s peak tomato season and they’re as sweet, juicy, and perfectly textured as they get. Whether you prefer them raw, a little bit roasted, stirred into a more complicated dish, or blended into a sauce, there’s bound to be a recipe here that you’ll want to bookmark.
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