Farm Stand Addiction

I cannot pass up farm stands.  This is a plain fact that Boy has readily accepted and in fact, has become similarly obsessed.  Some of the first tomatoes of summer are here already from seedlings nutured in greenhouses to allow for earlier production, and finished outside in the warm sun of early summer.  We stopped by a small but friendly farm stand on the way back from skydiving this past weekend and were greeted with a latino guy enthusiastically stuffing samples into our hands, from cantaloupe to tomatoes to cherries.  The tomatoes were perfectly ripe with that deep rich red color all the way through the tomato and were so juicy and delicious, you could eat them like an apple.  Tomatoes like these are impossible to find at the grocery store, where the pale pink mush they pretend to call tomatoes prevail.  Even the redder so-called vine ripened tomatoes will never rival the farm stand tomato.  So of course, I ended up buying 6.5 pounds of tomatoes (along with 2 quarts of beans and 3 pints of cherries).   

I know Sun-Dried Tomatoes are "so 1990s", but I love them, I don't care what anyone else says.  I have dreams of pastas tossed with sun-dried tomatoes, crispy homemade bacon, and spring greens / spring peas / spring anything.  I cut these into 1/4" slices, and then in half down the middle since the tomatoes were huuuuuge.  It took about 18 hours to dry because these guys were so damn juicy. 

I took some of the tomatoes and packed them with sliced garlic into a small mason jar with oregano, basil, and olive oil.  The rest I left as-is, for snacking and other yet-to-be-determined plans.