Tomato Heaven

I was happy to find a trickle of fresh tomatoes when I returned from vacation. It wasn't long before that trickle turned into a flood, despite what has been a very unpleasantly hot summer. They're not all beautiful fruits, but some of the ugliest are actually the tastiest.

I have given quite a few away, and I tried to soak up some of the surplus today by making some tomato chutney and a pitcher of gazpacho. The chutney turned out great; I melded together two different recipes I found on epicurious.com. I spiced it with ginger, coriander, cumin, fennel, fenugreek, black mustard, cayenne, nigella seeds, and a cinnamon stick, and I added golden raisins and onions along with the tomatoes, sugar, and vinegar. The taste I tried was delicious; we'll see how the flavors develop.

Tonight we are having a very locavore kind of dinner. Whole Foods had some locally raised lamb loin chops, which I am grilling. (They really seem to be carrying a lot more locally raised food; their consumer research must have shown that is a key value for their customers.) With them we're having some roasted fingerling potatoes from the garden, along with some purple pole beans (there are a few in the photograph above), which actually turn green when you cook them. I was going to open a Virginia wine to go with it, but we have a really great Cotes-du-Rhone that will pair well with the lamb, so that's the direction I decided to go.