Yum, tomatoes

So, today I had lunch at Cambridge Market & Cafe and boy was it good. I had the meatloaf, green beans and scalloped tomatoes. Now, those tomatoes tasted just like the ones I have been making for years. Except, with ours we like to have them with pinto beans fried potatoes fried apples and cornbread. I also like to use my homemade white bread (bread machine recipe) when I have it. Many days Rick, Val and I would enjoy our 'maters. Nick, who dearly loves ketchup, will not touch a tomato. Which brings me to a funny tomato story. When Nick was about six or seven years old, we had started growing a huge garden each year. This particular year in the early spring we had planted a couple rows of strawberry plants and with those the first year you don't let them bear, you want all the energy to be used to establish the plant. So We had to pinch off all the blooms of the strawberry plants. That chore (and boy it was a chore!) took quite a while to accomplish, it is one that had to be repeated several times a week for 3 or 4 weeks to capture all the blooms. OK to the funny part. We sat out a gazillion tomato plants. In a few weeks they grew and started producing blooms. Rick and I came home from town and Nick met us at the car. "DAD!! (He was sooo excited) I helped you! I pinched off all the blooms from the tomatoes in this row!" He really thought he had done something special! Of course, I had to keep Rick from showing his anger because Nick really did think he had helped. And he did. He said thanks to Nick and taught him about tomatoes and why we de-bloomed the strawberries and not the tomatoes.

Scalloped Tomatoes

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ground black pepper to taste
• 1/2 teaspoon dried basil (optional)
  
• 4 teaspoons brown sugar
• 1 quart whole or crushed tomatoes (home canned is best but store bought works well)
  
• 2 cups bread cubes (toast bread before cubing, may use french bread, Texas toast bread or white bread)
  

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375*.
2. Saute butter and onion in a medium saucepan until onion is transparent. Place salt, pepper, basil (optional), brown sugar and tomatoes into the saucepan, stir. Stir in bread until all of the ingredients are well seasoned.
3. Pour the tomato bread mixture into a greased 9x9 inch deep dish casserole. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes. Enjoy.

I hope you are enjoying these posts! I hope you all have a great day!

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