Home Grown Tomato

I have lived in my house for fifteen years and have tried to grow things requiring “full sun” for every single one of those years. You would think after wasting all of that money on plants I would come to realize that I have one of the shadiest yards in this neck of the woods.

Growing my own vegetables? Not going to happen on a few scant hours of sunlight per day. However, there is one spot that gets an ample amount of dappled sunlight the entire day and that is the table on my little patio. Last year I grew lettuce in planters. This year I figured I would try tomatoes.

Stop and Shop sells these planters that contain a tomato plant with a cage, basil and marigolds for approximately $20 and I figured that even if I only managed to ripen the two little green tomatoes that were on the plant when I bought it, it would be worth it to have two home grown tomatoes.

This summer has been so brutally hot that the tomatoes ripened quickly and a few more sprouted. I have to admit that I have watered diligently and fussed over them daily. Over the weekend I decided it was time to eat them.

Tomatoes grown in this heat have an indescribable sweetness to them and I was tempted to just sprinkle with salt and eat, but decided to use my tomatoes on one of my favorite sandwiches…a grilled cheese.

I had never imagined that a grilled cheese with tomato could be so tasty, but I discovered it at the Stewart Dining Hall at Boston College my freshman year. In all honesty, that sandwich was one of the many reasons I returned home with a large spare tire around my mid-section and a big butt. My friends and I ordered grilled cheese and tomato, French fries and a Diet Coke from “Large Marge” (the dining hall cashier) on a daily basis.

Good times, good times…thank you for indulging my walk down memory lane. I picked one of the ripe tomatoes and didn’t even need to wash it since it was still wet from a morning thunderstorm. I sliced off the bottom, sprinkled it with salt and ate it.

I made paper thin slices with the rest of my tomato and paired them with smoked mozzarella and two big slabs of gluten-free bread. I should have brushed the bread with olive oil for the full Italian theme, but I reached for the mayonnaise. Even though I am not a big fan of mayonnaise, it is the best fat to use to make crispy bread on a grilled cheese.

A few minutes in a hot fry pan and lunch was served. It really was good the BC dining hall way on white bread with American cheese, but fancied up and turned into a gluten free lunch didn’t change how really, really good that sandwich tastes. I can’t wait for the rest of them to ripen.

Kendall Egan