Tomatoes

I don't plant tomatoes from seed as I only need 6 plants, so this year we bought a tray of 6 mixed varieties. These were - cherry tomatoes, vine cherry tomatoes, beef tomatoes, plum tomatoes, vine plum tomatoes and a round tomato I've forgotten the name of!

As we've had so much hot weather, they've been prolific and they've had a wonderful flavour. They've lacked water, and we've got a hosepipe ban, so I've been using the 3 water butts, now they've run out!

Bob picked yet more today, so I decided to make some soup with some and I made a starter with a few more.

These are some lovely plum tomatoes going into the oven to be roasted, just drizzled with olive oil. These will be for the soup.

This is the starter. It's not a good picture as it's from a French magazine.

It's mozzarella tomato gratin.

for 4 people you need:

6 tomatoes, 1 ball of mozzarella [125g],

4 tbns grated parmesan, 1 clove of garlic

4 stems of parsley, 4 stems of basil, 1 tspn thyme

evo, s&p

Preheat oven 160C/gas6/325F

Cut the tomatoes in 2 horizontally and put them on a greased baking sheet. Sprinkle them with the thyme, s&p and a glug of evo. Cook them for about 40 mins.

Grate the mozzarella coarsely. Chop the basil and parsley. peel and chop the garlic.

Mix these with the grated and parmesan and about 10cl evo. Spread this on the cooked tomaotes.

Put under a grill for about 5 mins. Serve warm. Great with grilled chops or steak.