Posts Tagged ‘Grow Tomatoes Review’
Grow Tomatoes Review: Golden Pineapple Beefsteak – “Guacamole Salsa”
DoT’s Thot: I generally like my guacamole very simple — only avocado, lemon juice, salt, and cilantro. However, when tomato season is on, I cannot help but throw some delightful tomato chunks in the mix.
Golden Pineapple Beefsteak Tomato with Other Ingredients
Journal Entry: 4 July 2009, Independence Day Golden Pineapple Beefsteak Tomato “Guacamole Salsa”
The Golden Pineapple Beefsteak tomato is a lovely golden yellow tomato with red striping on the skin and beautiful pink streaks in the flesh. Firm, meaty, and mild with the firm, smooth texture that is so complementary to avocado, I keep planting this tomato despite its tendency to crack a little more than some of the other heirloom tomatoes I plant. That says a lot for the tomato. One of the reasons I do not mind the cracking is because of dishes like the one I am going to describe where I can lop off all the cracked parts and take the good parts and eat them in the yummy dish.
For a great side dish, these ingredients are few and simple, relying more on the freshness and innate goodness of the ingredients themselves. First, use really good chunks of tomato. Often, with homegrowers, we will have some not so pretty results, where there are some cracks or some not so well shaped tomatoes or (as I am gradually learning about pruning, etc.) tomatoes of various sizes from the same tomato plant. These still have lots of good tomato flesh and the same great flavor. Don’t waste those — besides cooking and canning, fresh dishes where you chop the tomato chunks, like this one, are great.
Golden Pineapple Beefsteak Tomato Characteristics
The Golden Pineapple beefsteak tomato pieces in my picture resulted from my cutting up a large beefsteak tomato that had a large blossom end and a few deep cracks. This has been a very nice continuing member of the garden this year. As mentioned above, Golden Pineapple Beefsteak produces meaty tomatoes which are a nice yellow with red streaks. It is very pretty in a dish like this and it’s mild, sweet taste melds so well with avocado and lime. The flesh is firm, but has a creamy, not mushy texture. There are few seeds and you can see how visually appealing the tomato slices and chunks are, especially so in this dish.
Tomatoes and Avocado Chopped and Lime Juice Applied
Other Ingredients
You will need a ripe, creamy textured, but firm avocado. The cilantro should be fresh and bright green. Use either lime juice or lemon juice, but always fresh-squeezed. Sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper finish the dish. Seasoned salt is always an option, if you prefer. If doing that, I like the variety with cracked black pepper in it.
The Process of Making the Golden Pineapple Beefsteak Tomato “Guacamole Salsa”
Clean all the ingredients. Remove the skin and seed from the avocado. Chop the avocado into nice half inch chunks. Remove any bad parts of the tomatoes (see above). Remove the stem and blossom ends. Chop the tomato, again into chunks about a half inch or less, if you like.
Place the avocado and tomato into a bowl. Squeeze the juice of the lime or lemon (about 1 to 2 tablespoons) over all and gently mix together.
Golden Pineapple Beefsteak Tomato "Guacamole Salsa" Served in Pretty Bowls
Sprinkle salt and pepper to taste and mix gently again. Put the mixture into pretty bowls. Chop the cilantro (again, use what you feel like eating — some people (like me) like a lot, some people like less and mix it in )– reserve a tablespoon of cilantro for each bowl as a topping. Finally put the results in pretty bowls, top with the reserved cilantro and serve it.
Suggested Uses for this Golden Pineapple Beefsteak Tomato Dish
If you like, use this as a side dish or pile it on chopped lettuce instead of dressing. You will find it goes well on top of short chunks of celery or flat ovoids of carrots or cucumber or with your favorite tortilla chips or whole grain crackers. Then again,sometimes, I just take the bowl and get a spoon.
Enjoy and Aloha, DoT
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Cultivate and Fertilize the Heirloom Tomatoes
Grow Tomatoes Review: Journal Entry – Early Tomatoes Were Hybrids in Pots
DoT’s Thot: I love heirloom tomatoes and the vast majority of the crop planted in 2009 are heirloom plants with the fruit anxiously awaited, since we know that to eat the best tasting tomatoes, we have to grow our own. However, the plants that show up early in the home improvement and garden shops are often the hybrid tomatoes, rather than the heirlooms.
Early Tomatoes, 23 June 2009, Celebrity and Roma
Roma and Celebrity Tomatoes Sliced
This year, I also had the misfortune of being out of town during one of the best tomato plant sales at one of the colleges. I have not gotten the hang of growing tomatoes from seeds — so, currently I rely on the good gardeners who apply their talents to keeping the heirlooms viable. Fortunately, there are enough tomato nuts to support the efforts of several horticultural departments and we all benefit. Hence, being a tomato lover I planted some fair size hybrids in pots some time in late February.
June 23, 2009 — Two Early Hybrid Tomatoes: Celebrity and Roma — Hardy and Firm
Two early tomatoes that came ripe in the third week of June were Celebrity and La Roma. Both tomatoes are hybrids, showed a great deal of hardiness with smooth skins, unblemished, and very firm. Both are a sprightly red color.
While our favorite eating tomatoes are the heirlooms, these are not as easily found in the local garden shops early in the year. These two plants were bought in February and potted in those mega-pots sitting on our patio. Conical tomato cages and bamboo stakes prop up the branches. The hardiness of the plants is noticeable and appreciated.
We frequent the horticulture department sales at local colleges for the heirloom tomato seedlings and have to wait for the sales in March each year. Our main garden tomato seedling purchases are set in the ground en masse in March.
Picked ripe from the large patio pots, these were sweeter than the store-bought tomatoes and since these were the only two ripe tomatoes available on that day, they were simply cut into rounds and wedges and then made into a simple side salad.
Side Salad of Tomatoes and Onions
Tomato and Sweet Red Onion Salad
To serve with chilled slices of sweet red onion. cut little half moon slices of onion and soak for 10 to 15 minutes in some water and ice cubes. Serve the onions along side the tomatoes.
A little squeeze of lemon over the onions and salt and pepper sprinkled over all completed the simple salad side dish.
Better Than Sore-Bought, But Not As Interesting as Heirloom Tomatoes
Decidedly an improvement from store-bought, these tomatoes only whetted my appetite for the heirloom tomatoes to come.
Reading about heirlooom and hybrid plants, it may be a good idea to support the effort to protect the horticultural diversity of this planet. In addition, I find I love the taste of heirloom tomatoes best. I will, for the time-being, do so by buying the plants and seeds of heirlooms that others passionately preserve.
The shapes, colors, and characteristics of heirloom varieties are appealing in their range of differences. In fact, I kept thinking that the Old German heirloom tomato plan somehow reminded me of pumpking and squash vines. Just looking at those twiesting tomato branches made me think of Germany, the Black Forest, and fairy tales. I have to get some pictures and post those. Aloha, DoT
Related Articles or References
- What is a Roma tomato?
- Heirlooms versus Hyrids: A Common-sense Approach
- Care Package of Tomatoes Packed to Go to Berkeley
Related Posts
- Tip: Stake Up and Tie Those Stray Tomato Branches with Velcro
- Grow Tomatoes Journal News: 2009 Late Blight hits East Coast
- Grow Tomatoes Journal: Review of Ingredients for 20 Cups of Salsa
- Grow Tomatoes Review: 18 Oz. Omar’s Lebanese Beefsteak Tomato
- Grow Tomatoes Review: Sugar Lump Cherry Heirloom
- Tomato Gardening Journal — Review of May 2009
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- First Tomato of 2009 — Pink Thai Egg
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