It’s no secret that I love love love tomatoes from the garden. This year, I planted wild tomatoes, San Marzano plum tomatoes, beefsteak tomatoes, yellow and red cherry tomatoes, and Black Krim tomatoes. I had tomatoes to my heart’s content. And sometimes when I’m slicing a fully ripened tomato, I get a flashback memory of my grandmother serving up a sweet version of tomatoes when I was a kid.
She liked to garden, too, and she did it on a big scale. She had the green thumb of all green thumbs, and every once in a while, she would make me a special treat: sliced tomatoes with cream and sugar. Served cold, there was just enough sugar to complement the light acid of the fresh tomato. To fully appreciate this dish, though, there is no way it could be recreated with tasteless supermarket tomatoes. The tomatoes called for here must be vine ripened.
This recipe below is adapted from The Southern Junior League Cookbook, and features cherry tomatoes sweetened with brown sugar, lightly sauteed in butter and served with cream. For those who have never had tomatoes with cream and sugar, it is an unusual treat. I like my tomatoes cold, but this recipe caters to those who like the dish warmed.
Cherry Tomatoes in Cream
Yield 4 servings
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 3 tablespoons brown sugar, packed
- 1/2 teaspoons salt
- 1 box organic, vine-ripened cherry tomatoes
- 1 pint heavy cream
Instructions
- Melt the butter in a heavy skillet, and add in the butter and salt. Stir.
- Add in washed and dried tomatoes, and stir gently until the tomatoes begin to split.
- Add the cream, and serve.
Notes
This recipe is adapted from The Southern Junior League Cookbook: The Best Recipes from the Junior Leagues of the American South, edited by Ann Seranne from 1977. The book has all kinds of classic recipes from 29 different Junior Leagues from southern states.