Chatting Tomatoes, Corn, Zucchini & More with Margaret Roach
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Funny story: My aunt Marcy (the one with the dogs in Vermont) came to visit me on Tuesday. She arrived with a bag of special Vermont plums (delicious!), a tub of pineapple tomatillos (irresistible!), and a glass pitcher filled with an orange-y hued purée I recognized instantly as Julia Moskin’s gazpacho, the one everyone is making.
Surprise Aunt Marcy: I’ve been making it too! I opened the fridge to reveal a mirror image, a glass pitcher filled with an orange-y hued purée, the silky smooth Spanish gazpacho I had blitzed on Monday evening.
Friends: have you made it? I learned about it via Jenny Rosenstrach and Cup of Jo, and I’m finding it to be as miraculous of a little recipe as promised: it takes about five minutes to whip up; it yields a huge quantity; it puts to great use so much of the peak summer produce; it’s delicious and not to mention totally refreshing and incredibly healthy. I like mine drizzled with chili oil.
Hooray: it’s tomato season! Morning- noon- and night-tomato season! But also: up-to-our-eyeballs zucchini season. And: Don’t-blink-how-did-it-pass? corn season.
So much to savor, so little time.
Good news: My friend, Margaret Roach of A Way to Garden, and I have some ideas. We recently chatted about all the tomato, all the zucchini, and all the corn recipes we could squeeze into 25 minutes. Margaret also shares her tips for ripening tomatoes, her method for roasting tomatoes in preparation for freezing, and her go-to, easy skins-on tomato sauce recipe.
I’ve linked to all of the recipes (and more!) below. You can listen to the podcast over on A Way to Garden and enter to win a copy of Bread Toast Crumbs there, too.
UPDATE: GIVEAWAY IS CLOSED. WINNER IS WENDY. I HAVE EMAILE YOU. But before you go! Enter to win a copy of Margaret’s award-winning A Way to Garden here: Leave a comment below. Tell me what you’re currently most excited to be eating or cooking or what you’re looking forward to making most.
Tomato Recipes
Get All the Tomato Recipes Right Here → Tomatoes
After you’ve had your fill of open-faced tomato-and-mayonnaise sandwiches, tomato-topped cream cheese-smeared bagels, BLTs, pan con tomate, simple salads, and pico de gallo, here are some ideas.
But first! Have you seen the new Alexandra’s Kitchen recipe filter? Click on “Recipes” in the top navigation bar. Then filter away!
A Few Perennial Favorites:
- Tomato and Corn Galette (I’ve been making this David Lebovitz recipe for nearly 20 years.)
- Oven-Dried Tomatoes + Bruschetta (Summer in a jar.)
- Tomato-Red Bell Pepper Sauce (My favorite summer sauce: so delicious, so fast.)
- Marcella Hazan Tomato Sauce, Simplified (No peeling!)
- Roasted Tomato and Bread Soup (If you’re feeling fall.)
From Around the Web:
- Margaret Roach’s Skins-On Tomato Sauce
- Julia Moskin’s gazpacho (A new favorite! Pictured up top.)
- Spaghetti with no-cook Puttanesca (Eager to try!)
- Margaret Roach’s Roasted Tomatoes
- Turkish Scrambled Eggs (Looks so good.)
- Naked Tomato Sauce (Long-time Smitten Kitchen favorite.)
Corn Recipes
Get All the Corn Recipes Right Here → Corn
When you’ve had your fill of corn on the cob…
A Few Perennial Favorites:
- Raw Corn Salad with Tomatoes, herbs, lots of acid, and feta (Mark Bittman)
- Fresh corn polenta (A must-make once a summer.)
- Soup with a corn cob stock: Deborah Madison’s or Samin Nosrat’s
- Fritters with Cheddar and Scallions (Deborah Madison’s)
- Melissa Clark’s creamy (no cream!) corn pasta
To Try:
- Milk Street’s Pasta with Corn and Tomatoes (Eager to try!)
- Grilled Romaine and Corn Salad (Looks so good.)
Zucchini Recipes
Get All the Zucchini Recipes Right Here → Zucchini
A Few Perennial Favorites:
- Summer Squash Spaghetti
- Raw salad with olive oil, lemon, parmesan
- Roasted or Sautéed with pine nuts and herbs
- Zucchini Parmesan
- Zucchini Involtini
- Zucchini Fritters
- Zucchini Bread
- Roasted Ratatouille
From Around the Web:
- Heidi Swanson’s pasta with smashed zucchini cream (Loved this one!)
- Zucchini Pickles (Zuni cafe recipe)
- Canal House’s Marinated Zucchini (Food52)
- Zucchini Butter (If you’re looking to cull your haul.)
- Zucchini quesadillas (Smitten Kitchen)
- Stuffed Globe Zucchini (Cookie + Kate)
- Oven-Baked Zucchini Fries (Marilena’s Kitchen)
Enjoy these last few weeks of summer, my Friends! Comment below for a chance to win Margaret’s beautiful book!
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure policy.
148 Comments on “Chatting Tomatoes, Corn, Zucchini & More with Margaret Roach”
Love these recipes
Thank you for the perfect summer evening eating your savory tomato, corn, and caramelized onion galette and salad with shallot vinaigrette dressing! We had so much fun with you, and I hope our attempts at the galette are as delicious and as pretty as yours.
So many veggies, so many recipes-what to make first? I probably do more cooking in September than any other time of the year because of the quantity of veggies I get at my CSA farm. I’m ready, bring it on!
You are new to me and I look forward to enjoying your blog and recipes. Would love to win Margaret’s book. Thank you.
oh, yum, it all looks so good! corn and i have issues, but tomatoes and zuchinni seem to be made for one another. gotten some ideas, thank you!
This was a very good blog today! I loved all the recipes. I am looking forward to making the Roasted tomato and Bread soup!! We love tomato soup and this one looks so delicious. I love the carrot added for great flavor. I would love a copy of the book.
Loved listening to you both – everything sounded so delicious!! I love sauteing small okra with the tops cut off with padron peppers (also top/stem cut off), in a little olive oil and adding minced garlic, salt and pepper. When they’re almost done add corn scraped off the cob and cook a bit longer and turn the heat off and add a chopped ripe tomato. Really yum!
Sept is the best! enjoy all the fresh produce – sorry it’ll soon be over….would love to win Margaret’s new book!
Just listened the podcast – I enjoyed so much hearing all you and Margaret had to say about the bounty of the season! Now I am even more inspired to cook more recipes featuring fresh corn and tomatoes! Best time of the year for all of us who enjoy cooking!
I am looking forward to making the zucchini parmesan to help create a small dent in my bounty. I’ll make my own sauce using my lettuce-leaf basil, my favorite herb. It’s easy to work with and really makes the sauce sublime!
Count me in! Love all your wonderful recipes!
The recipes all look wonderful… I’ve just printed a bunch. Very timely! And my first time on your site.
Oh man now I just want to make gazpacho. And eat it with my homemade sourdough..
My mortgage lifters were so heavy that they caused the well-supported stem to collapse — and we had to put scaffolding throughout the cage!
I am in love with pico de gallo this season, perfect for the prime ripe tomatoes. My step-son suggested food milling tomatoes, keep the pulp raw and cook down the juice so you get a great combo fresh and cooked tomatoes — sweet as candy!
Keep up all the great ideas and stories!
I definitely want to make the oven dried tomato-bruschetta and the tomato andred bell pepper sauce. My mom and I LOVE bruschetta but I’ve never made it from scratch, and I love red bell peppers in pretty much anything!
I also would like to try many of the zucchini recipes since now I know my dad likes it just as much as I do! Honestly, all of these look delicious though.
Looking forward to making the gazpacho and trying Margaret’s recipe for roasting tomatoes for freezing. For fresh tomatoes, I have a corn salad recipe from ‘O’ magazine that I make, with grape tomatoes, red onion, black beans and red wine vinegar. For grape tomatoes ‘past their prime’, I make Smitten Kitchen’s farro with tomatoes and onion recipe. Of coarse, a BLT using your peasant bread, toasted, is always a treat!
Vegetable enchiladas and grilled vegetable on focaccia
Anddd this is why I adore summer. What DONT I want to make?! But I swear those zucchini recipes are screaming my name. Every. Single. One. 😂 definitely my favorite summer veggie.
Margaret Roach’s blog has great soup recipes. Ps, I make Alexandracooks bread ALL the time. Yum!
Looking forward to making zucchini bread tomorow
looking forward to making zucchini bread tomorrow
All of the pasta, please! Yum! Thanks for the chance to win!
Right now I’m excited for the tomatoes ripening in the garden. Want to try the oven dried tomatoes you shared in your stories the other day!
I just made your black lentil and labneh recipe for a friends and we loved it! Substituted kale for spinach as that’s what we had. Love your talks on A Way to Garden!
I am most looking forward to having my eggplant get large enough to make ratatouille with the tomatoes and zucchini from the garden. I loved your raw corn salad (which I’ve made twice – so far). I found your web site several months ago from A Way to Garden and would love to win her book.
Fresh tomatoes are long gone here in the desert. I’ll opt for Hatch green chilies straight from the barrel roaster with a sprinkle of salt.🔥#toohottostop
Right now I have been enjoying a beautiful abundance of my homegrown tomatoes.
It seems that the simpler the recipe the more the tomatoes stands out. My favorites are on artisan toast with a little garlic and evoo, blts, and tomato tarts, all with fresh basil.
Since dealing with a health problem that caused me to have to eliminate so many delicious favorite foods from my diet, the doctor just let me add tomatoes back in, which came at the perfect time, as my garden is rapidly filling with Cherokee Purple tomatoes. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. I’ll eat them in every way possible! I’m so thankful!
I’ve also made Alison Roman’s fish twice! So good! Made the tomato galette from Bon Apetit Aug issue, couldn’t get enough! Now taking taking a break from all the meat and things on buns and trying to make more salads. Arugula, farro, tomato and corn, avocado, feta.
Hi Alexandra! You’ve been a huge cooking inspiration to me—I even joined my first CSA this fall.