Can I tell you how excited I am for the July line up? This month a few of our regular Doristas got to pick the recipes and I have to say that the selection is going to make for a very fun month… and possibly a few trips to the store for specialty ingredients. But the first recipe of the month, chosen by Kathy at Bakeaway with Me, is a wonderfully simple dish with a very short list of ingredients. Tomatoes Provencal is one of my favorite dishes and I make it as often as I can in the summer. My standard recipe is from Mark Strausman’s Campagna book and is absolutely wonderful. He calls for the tomatoes to be cooked in a homemade tomato sauce on low heat for almost 5 hours!!! It’s not a quick weeknight recipe for sure, but oh my is it good.
In contrast, Dorie’s Tomatoes Provencal are relatively quick. She has us topping them with a simple mix of fresh herbs and olive oil and spending only an hour in the oven. The only fiddling I did with the recipe was to remove the seeds from only half the tomatoes to test if this step really made a difference. In fact, yes, it did make a difference and I will take the extra time in the future so that my tomatoes take on a more concentrated tomato taste. With such a simple recipe, I will happily make this more often. But, between you and I, I will probably also continue to pull out the Campagna recipe when I have the time. Did I mention that it is delicious?
To round out the meal I whipped up some sauteed eggplant and my husband threw some lamb chops on the grill. May I just say that in the almost 2 months since he has had his grill he has been getting lots of practice and I have been the happy beneficiary. The next day I chopped up the leftover tomatoes and added them to the leftover eggplant to make a tasty pasta sauce. Don’t you just love coming home after a long day of work to find a fridge full of leftovers? Few things in life make me happier.
one expat's life 
What a fantastic sounding meal all around! Yum!
Love those lampchops and shall bear in mind about de-seeding the tommies.
Looks great! This week ran away with me, so I’ll do this next week. Eggplant and lamb chops sound like a perfect pairing.
Rose, yes, you are right, there is nothing better than coming home after a long day at work and finding the most delicious left-overs in your fridge. The idea of mixing the remaining oven-roasted tomatoes and the aubergine to make a pasta sauce sounds wonderful to me!
By the way, you were right the State of Hessen´s summer holidays will start on 28.07 until 05.09., later than us around here.
Hope you had a wonderful 4th of July (in Frankfurt) and enjoyed last night´s game!
Have a great weekend!
Andrea
What a lovely meal! And I love how you repurposed your tomatoes into a sauce…terrific idea!!!
Yes it is great to have a grill and a willing griller. We use our bbq year round but we can in California. We enjoyed these also. I am using the leftovers on pizza tonight.
Five hours is devotion, so I was glad this was quick. Glad you liked this version too.
Yes, leftovers that are dinner worthy is a huge bonus. I like the creative way that people used up their leftovers this week!
A fabulous sounding meal!! I am surprised that the seeds made a difference in this dish…next time I will be removing them also. I had just a few tomatoes leftover…I pureed them and used them as a sauce over some leftover pork roast…very nice! Have a lovely week, Rose!
Yes these were summer on a plate, weren’t they? And also excellent as leftovers!
The Campagna recipe sounds delicious. I may need to search for a similar one! Interesting to know that removing the seeds did make a difference. I’ll have to try that sometime.
Sounds like that grill was a great investment! And leftovers are a wonderful thing to have. I love your experiment with the tomato seeds – I left them in and used the juices for other purposes, but having a more concentrated flavour sounds delicious.