Fresh From the Garden

 

These salads are a wonderful use of your garden tomatoes...or if you don't have any garden tomatoes, you can still enjoy these fantastic side dishes with tomatoes from your grocery store.

Tomato and Sweet Onion Salad

Ingredients:

1 pound ripe mixed tomatoes, cut into wedges
1 pint Sun Gold cherry tomatoes, halved
1/2 small sweet onion (such as Vidalia or Maui), thinly sliced
1/2 cup torn fresh basil leaves
1/4 cup 1/2-inch pieces fresh chives
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon sugar
Kosher salt, freshly ground pepper

Directions:

Combine tomatoes, onion, basil, chives, oil, vinegar, and sugar in a large bowl; season with salt and pepper and toss to combine.

This salad can be made up to 6 hours ahead. Cover and chill.

Source: Bon Appetit. You can find it here.

Notes: Oh, this just tastes like summer. Such a great tomato side dish. Rather than using tomatoes cut into wedges, we used a variety of colored grape tomatoes cut in half.

Cherry Tomato Salad (aka Cherry Tomato and Olive Salad)

Ingredients:

40 cherry tomatoes, halved
1 cup pitted and sliced green olives
1 (6 ounce) can black olives, drained and sliced
2 green onion, minced
3 ounces pine nuts (we used toasted chopped almonds)
1/2 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 tablespoons white sugar
1 teaspoon dried oregano
Salt and pepper, to taste

Directions:

In a big bowl, combine cherry tomatoes, green olives, black olives, and green onions.

In a dry skillet, toaste pine nuts (or almonds) over medium heat until golden brown, turning frequently. Stir into tomato mixture.

In a small bowl, mix together olive oil, red wine vinegar, sugar, and oregano. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Pour over salad, and gently stir to coat. Chill for 1 hour.

Source: Allrecipes.com, submitted by Keren. You can find it here.

Notes: This wonderful salad deserved much better pictures than the ones I took. Bad lighting! Bad! However, this is so amazing that I will happily make it again and post better pictures when I do.