Summer is the best for being up-to-your-eyeballs in fresh tomatoes. All our tomato plants are doing really well this year. Hallelujah. The cherry tomatoes seem to produce a handful per day and the larger tomatoes thankfully ripen just a few at a time. My rents have a bumper crop of cukes and tomatoes which we’ve “helped” to consume.
Sometimes on an ‘anything goes’ night our mystery ingredient is…surprise, tomatoes. I had a few large ones at the same time so I wanted to plan something that would really highlight tomatoes. I adapted a Cooking Light Tomato Ricotta Pie which was more about the shredded cheese and Martha Stewart’s Tomato Ricotta Tart which uses breadcrumbs for the base/crust.
Ingredients:
1 pie crust, thawed (or made from scratch)
3 tomatoes, sliced
1 cup whole-milk ricotta
2 eggs
½ cup grated parmesan
¼ cup light alfredo sauce (optional)
1 tsp chopped garlic
salt & pepper
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Gently unroll pie crust into a pie dish sprayed with non-stick spray, poking a few holes into the crust with a fork.
Bake for 10 minutes.
While crust is pre-baking, whisk together ricotta, eggs, parmesan, alfredo sauce, garlic, salt and pepper.
Remove crust from oven and pour the cheese mix.
Lay the tomatoes over the top slightly overlapping.
Sprinkle with extra sea salt or fleur de sel.
Bake for 30 minutes.
Optional: broil for the last 3 minutes to give the tomatoes more color.
Let sit for at least 5 minutes before slicing.
I liked that this was light but filling. It was kind of along the lines of quiche, but less eggy. I am pretty obsessed with ricotta so I enjoyed this. It could easily pretend to be brunch food too. I liked the leftovers too.
I didn’t happen to have any fresh basil but a little bit of that would be good. I absolutely don’t think this would have been the same with grocery store tomatoes. Quick! Find a farmer’s market near you!
Maybe I’ll try the breadcrumb as crust idea for a zucchini pie next.
Cost Breakdown:
crust: $1.84
tomatoes: free! (or about $2 at a farmer’s market)
ricotta: $2.19
eggs: $0.32
alfredo sauce: (half of a jar) $1.34
parmesan cheese: $1.19
total: $6.69 (serves 4 as a meal ($1.67 per person), or 6 as a meal/brunch accompaniment ($1.11 per person)
Can’t beat that price per person!
All that ricotta! Sounds good to me…especially with those pretty tomatoes on top.