A Tomato for Every Occasion

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

It's that time of year when the answer to every question is: Tomatoes. Understand? If I ask the lovely wife that is Venus, "what's for dinner?" The answer is: TOMATOES.

What's for lunch? TOMATOES. Breakfast? TOMATOES. What's your favorite drink? TOMATO COLLINS!

With a splash of gin, of course.

The point is -- with an overload of tomato production -- you start looking for recipes that call for fresh heirloom tomatoes and lots of them.

Fortunately -- I found such a recipe. It's pictured above. Yeah, it's fancy alright. But thanks to my San Joaquin Valley tastes -- I lowered it down to proper "valley standards." The official title of this dish, featured in the uppity-duppity New York Times no less, is (and I quote): Penne With Heirloom Tomatoes, Basil, Green Beans and Feta.

Leftover Tri-Tip from Sunday Night Dinner

I'll be honest. I fiddled around with this recipe a bit -- and came up with a new name of: Penne With Heirloom Tomatoes, Basil, Green Beans, Feta AND LEFTOVER TRI-TIP.

Heh...

The official tomato for this dish? None other than Stupice, which is churning out golf-ball sized tomatoes faster than we can consume or give them away. This is the perfect tomato for a dish such as this, because the Stupice has a zip that goes well with slivered basil and Feta cheese.

Plus, uh, we have a lot of Stupice on the vine. Stupice anyone?

Fresh off the vine Pole Beans

There's another reason why I picked this dish out of the 24-odd recipes featured in the New York Times. It also called for a healthy offering of fresh green beans. What a coincidence, as we have pole beans and bush beans coming out of our EARS at the moment. This is the perfect dish at the perfect time.

Plus -- uh -- we had the leftover tri-tip from Sunday night's dinner.

Hey man -- you go with what you got. To be honest? We could have added squash, eggplant, green onions, carrots and a multitude of other vegetables that are producing like madness in the Bird Back 40 at the moment (pumpkin anyone?).

But we left that for another evening and another dish that I like to call "Hodge Podge Garden Soup." Hodge Podge Garden Soup, by the way, can easily be turned into "Hodge Podge Garden Casserole" and "Hodge Podge Garden Omlet." Those meals are yet to come.

Stupice Tomatoes with Basil and Seasonings

The recipe, which calls for "salt and pepper to taste" was also modified somewhat to include freshly ground black pepper -- because nothing says "fancy" like freshly ground black pepper. Plus, let's be honest here, OK? Freshly ground black pepper is REALLY good -- especially when you combine it with vine-ripened heirloom tomatoes warmed by our famous Sacramento Valley sunshine.

The dish is fairly easy to make -- and Venus and I made this a team effort. While she chopped up the pole beans and basil, I took care of slicing and dicing the Stupice tomatoes and grinding up the black pepper. It seemed somewhat criminal to add a boxed pasta like Penne, but we haven't started growing the fresh ingredients used for fresh pasta yet.

Yet, I say. The Bird Back 40 is an experiment in all things gardening. Who knows what we might be growing in another five to ten years.

Stupice Tomatoes for SNACKING!

The finished dish, which is detailed below, was indeed a slice of heaven. Anything combined with fresh heirloom tomatoes and basil from the backyard garden is usually a slice of heaven. But this dish in particular was pretty darn good -- and also made for a nice lunch at work the very next day.

We don't let good heirloom tomatoes go to waste in the Bird House.

Do you have a favorite dinner/lunch/breakfast recipe that features heirloom tomatoes and other good stuff from the backyard summer garden? If so -- please feel free to leave it behind -- because we're always taking suggestions.

And now -- without further delay -- the recipe for Penne With Heirloom Tomatoes, Basil, Green Beans and Feta (with whatever barbequed delicacy you may have leftover from the night before. Don't be picky. This meal works with anything).

This recipe first appeared in the August 5th, 2009 edition of the New York Times and may be accessed here.

Penne With Heirloom Tomatoes, Basil, Green Beans and Feta

By MARTHA ROSE SHULMAN

Sweet, juicy heirloom tomatoes lend themselves well to uncooked tomato sauces. In summer, I make quick meals out of chopped ripe tomatoes, pasta and green vegetables.

6 to 8 ounces fresh green beans, trimmed, strings removed if necessary, and broken in half if very long

2 cups chopped fresh ripe tomatoes

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 plump garlic clove, minced (more to taste-we used more)

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste (I like to use a very good coarse sea salt or fleur de sel for this)

1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar (optional)

2 tablespoons slivered basil (we used more)

2 ounces crumbled feta (about 1/2 cup)

3/4 pound pasta (penne or fusilli are good choices)

1. Combine the olive oil, tomatoes, garlic, basil, salt and pepper in a large bowl, and let sit for 15 to 30 minutes (or longer).

2. Bring a large pot of generously salted water to a boil. Fill a bowl with ice water. Add the green beans to the boiling water, and boil four to five minutes, depending on how crunchy you like them. Remove with a strainer or skimmer, and transfer to the ice water. Allow to cool for a few minutes, then drain and set aside.

3. Bring the water back to a boil, and add the pasta. Cook until al dente, about eight minutes. When the pasta is ready, drop the green beans back into the water to heat, then drain the pasta and beans and toss at once with the tomato mixture and the feta. Serve hot or room temperature.

Yield: Serves four.

You Like Melons? Bill Bird LIKES MELONS!!!

Let me rephrase that title just a tad: Bill Bird just doesn't *like* melons. He LOVES melons. You've heard of a Renaissance Man? Call me a Melon Man. There's nothing quite like that sweet taste of summertime sugar fruit that comes straight out of a San Joaquin Valley Field -- or better yet -- your own backyard.

I'm not sure when my love affair with all things melon began -- but it's been with me for quite some time. I literally faint at the luscious site of a watermelon half converted into a bowl that contains a fruity mix of fruit salad. One of my favorite events to cover during my television and reporting days in Fresno was the famous Kingsburg Watermelon Festival -- where you could chow down on as much melon as you could possibly consume.

Note: Bill Bird can consume a lot of melon. He proved that over the course of several Kingsburg summer festivals. "I'll cover this one boss," I would volunteer. "I'll see you in eight or nine hours." When reminded by the News Director that covering the festival was a two or three hour job, my retort was always, "not if you want a serious reporting job boss."

Venus and I devote one half of an 8X8 planter bed to our passion. She's more partial to Cantaloupe -- but fell in love with an heirloom watermelon variety last year called Moon and Stars. And -- sure enough -- Venus' favorite melon is back this year -- planted in more than one raised bed.

As for why the most wonderful wife in the world prefers the Moon and Stars -- I'm not sure -- but it might be the size. Venus is a fan of "small and cute" (I sometimes wonder why she married me as I'm neither) -- and that's what you get with the Moon and Stars: a personal size serving of melon.

As for Bill Bird? Call me the "anti small and cute." I like my melons big. Not just big -- but back-buster huge monsters peaking out from underneath a canopy of watermelon plant leaves. There's nothing prettier -- in my humble opinion -- than a 40 lb. green-rind garden monster packed with a mouthwatering reddish-pink fruit. When it comes to watermelon -- only one rule applies: Bigger is Better.

Imagine my excitement this morning then -- as I was inspecting the "patch." Like everything else this year -- our melon growing efforts got off to a slow start this season thanks to some rather stinky spring weather. I've been checking the patch daily -- hoping to find some sort of fruity growth in there -- but had been rather disappointed with what I'd found. It was usually a whole lot of nothing.

I know the problem isn't pollination this year. The melon patch is literally humming with activity as honeybees and other native pollinators move in an out -- feasting upon one open flower or another. The patch is watered deeply twice a week and also receives a daily dose of fertilizer (both organic and non-organic***).

So what gives then? As it turns out -- I was lacking in one major category: PATIENCE BILL BIRD.

I know -- you're shocked.

Patience rewarded. As I walked toward the watermelon patch this morning -- something winked at me out of the corner of my eye. Drawn by early morning sunlight bouncing off zippered lime-and-dark green shoulders -- I discovered the most wonderful sight in the world: a watermelon. And not just any melon either. It was the most beautiful watermelon I've ever seen. It's a monster melon -- or it soon will be.

But the melon patch wasn't satisfied in revealing its deep, dark secrets. As I was looking at the most gorgeous of sights -- yet another and larger melon caught my eye two feet away. And then another -- and yet another. As I would soon discover -- my melon patch is literally filled with fast-growing watermelons of all shapes -- sizes and varieties.

"Aha!" I thought. "No wonder the cats are paying so much attention to this area." And it's true. I noticed our one true hunter-killer cat (named Precious) in front of the melon patch last night. I also remembered seeing her in about the same location the night before. I knew what she was doing.

What pest is attracted to melons? Well -- lots of them actually. Birds of all shapes and sizes love melons -- but the rind is far too hard for them to peck into -- so they generally leave the patch alone. But the field mice known as Voles love melon patches -- as I ruefully discovered last year. They're adept at digging into melons from the ground up -- so you never do begin to notice the damage until it's time to harvest.

Precious has been catching her share of Voles lately. I know this for a fact because she routinely brings them inside to show Venus -- who proceeds to emit an ear-piercing shriek of terror before Precious runs right back outside with her "snack." Her "guardianship" of the melon patch tells me that the Voles have discovered our crop this year as well.

Venus and I are growing several varieties of watermelon and other melons this season. Besides the Moon and Stars -- the Jubilee Melon has found a home in this year's garden -- as has another variety known as Kleckley Sweet. Both are the type of melons that Bill Bird loves -- which means they come in sizes of large, extra-large and Holy Cow.

Another new entry in the Bird Back 40 this season is a hybrid melon-cantaloupe cross called Honeycomb. The seeds for this variety were purchased from Pinetree Garden Seeds -- which offers this somewhat tasty and mouthwatering description:

"The first thing I notice with a honeydew melon is the fragrance and Honeycomb is a fine smelling specimen. It is quite large for a fairly early maturing variety with many going in excess of 6 pounds. Anyone growing Honeycomb mentions its high yield, around a half dozen fruit per hill. Flavor is great, enhanced by a super high sugar content."

And finally -- to top it all off -- the final entry in this year's melon patch is the old standard: Hale's Best Jumbo Cantaloupe. Like the nearby melon crops -- it is also fruiting with abundance.

Is that enough to get ye olde tastebuds working? Too much for you? In my humble opinion -- the line of "too much melon" represents an oxymoron. We're off to a late start this year -- no doubt -- but better late than never.

***EDITORS NOTE: Daily dose of fertilizers does not imply that Bill Bird is fertilizing his garden every single day of the week. The organic fertilizers of Maxicrop and Omega 2000 are applied once every two weeks -- per label directions.