Meatless Month: Day 17

That flirty little hint of filling is trying to seduce you.  I wish I could go back to summer tomatoes so I could make this right now.  This was divine.

Mr. Hungry and I do not possess green thumbs.  We sometimes try to grow tomatoes, but the efforts are usually not rewarded with a bumper crop.  So this summer we relied on my parents' phenomenal vegetable garden to keep us in delicious tomato supply.

Being a household of two can be a challenge when you have pounds and pounds of tomatoes to use.  I'm not fond of tomato sauce, so wasting the gorgeous, juicy, red tomatoes of late summer on sauce seemed a tragedy to me.  I needed something that would highlight them in all of their lusciousness.  Having recently discovered my love of pie crust, I decided a tomato pie would be just the thing.

I worked without a recipe, other than the one for the pie crust.  I prefer to use all butter in mine, but you could certainly use your fat of choice - shortening, lard, margarine - whatever makes you happy.  I chopped the tomatoes but left skin and seeds intact.  I mixed them with salt and pepper, and a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese and left the mixture to sit while I rolled out the pie crust.  To the bottom crust, I spread the barest hint of mayonnaise.  My reasons for this were twofold: for one, I wanted to ensure an unsoggy crust, and two, I love tomatoes with mayonnaise.  I then tumbled the tomatoes into the pie plate, tossed in some chiffonaded basil - this, I managed to grow all summer! - and topped it off with another pie crust.  I sliced a few vents, sprinkled a little more cheese on top, and baked it for about 40 minutes.

 I did experience some pie crust-shrinkage, but I was still rather pleased with the way this beauty came out of the oven.

This was every bit as good as you might be imagining, and then some.  I know what I'll be doing with my first batch of tomatoes next summer.