Caprese Towers

This is what received last week from our share at Plato’s Harvest Organic Farm

Our basket is filled with tomatoes…  ahhh…..tomatoes…. my VERY favorite!!

*squeal*

look at these babies!!!

not to be under shadowed by the awesomeness that is the tomato… we also received some

purple carrots!

Before the recipe I’d like to share a story…

I loved to ‘play’ with food since I was a little girl. When I was about 4 or 5, my grandfather had made a make- shift stove for me in my grandparents’ back yard out of some tree stumps & plywood.

How is wish that I had a picture of that now…

My grandmother gave me some of her old pots & pans & wooden spoons. While my sister & her friends were playing normal kid things, I was mixing sticks & stones in my ‘kitchen’.

My grandparents has a backyard veggie garden. I remember one day thinking that it would be a great idea to pick ALL of their ripe tomatoes & try to make them into a sauce in my beach pail.

NOT such a good idea..

I’m sure that they were furious with me, but what I remember most about that day was sitting in the corner of their garage ( trying to stay out of view, I’m sure) trying, trying, trying to mix those tomatoes into sauce..

here is a picture of my sister, my aunt & I in front of the garage where I ‘created’ my first sauce. The garden is off to the right.

I’m the one in pink 🙂 some things never change…

Thank you for letting me share this.

now back to our regularly scheduled recipe..

I think that I (as I’m sure many) am SO excited about tomatoes due to the fact that last years’ crop was basically wiped out ( at least in the Northeast) by blight.

But this year.. they are amazing!

I made Caprese towers 🙂

simple, yet elegant ingredients

tomatoes ( we were lucky enough to have 3 colors but any color is fine)
Fresh mozzarella
basil leaves
Extra-virgin olive oil
Kosher salt
fresh cracked pepper

I love to prep all of my ingredients before I build. Just looking at this board makes me ♥smile ♥

assembling is easy.. just alternately layer tomatoes with the cheese.  Lay the basil leaves on top of each other, roll into a ‘cigar’ then cut small slices.. you will end up with ribbons of basil to sprinkle over the top. Season the towers with kosher salt & cracked pepper.. and drizzle with the olive oil..

Now I have to admit that I attempted to make a ‘basil oil’ prior to making these stacks.

I added a handful of basil leaves to my blender with about 1/2 cup of olive oil, salt & pepper.

Blend until the oil is green , then strain out basil leaves.

I did not like the color that the oil came out to be. The flavor was wonderful, but I think that the heat from the blades of the blender bruised the basil..

Next time I will try to blanche the basil first. When I made the arugula pesto last month, the blanching helped the pesto keep it’s beautiful bright color.

Mr. barefoot keeps telling me that when I make a mistake ( in the kitchen or otherwise ) that I’m not doing it wrong, I’m simply learning yet another way how NOT to do something.

wise man.

I’m not a chef, I’m not a teacher; I am someone who loves to learn & who enjoys sharing what I know & what learn along the way.

I’m learning every day;)

oxoxo