Today's vegetable 'recipe' - wait no, let's call it vegetable 'serving inspiration': A platter of perfect summer tomatoes, topped with olives and crumbled feta. Perfect for one or two or a crowd.
My friend Mary brought a big plate of tomatoes to supper on Friday. I loved her tomato serving idea so much, I re-created it on Saturday! So this isn't so much a 'recipe' as a serving suggestion, for it really did work beautifully and flew together in minutes.
Mary made a homemade vinaigrette (carrying it in a handy-dandy salad dressing mixer
) to drizzle over the tomatoes just before serving but I went a step simpler still by purchasing an olive-feta mix from the olive bar at the grocery store (where it's quick to pick up just a few olives for a salad or whatever), already moistened with a little olive oil and it was quite delicious already. Since ours was a small group on Friday, Mary also built 'stacks' of cucumber and thick beefsteak tomato, effectively creating a 'serving' that could be easily moved to an individual plate. Since Saturday's supper was a casual large-group buffet, I just did one layer of cucumber and topped it with another layer of tomatoes. Some people took both, some just stuck to tomatoes.
So this is really flexible (and surprisingly delicious!), make it fit your table!
TOMATO PLATTER with OLIVES & FETA
Hands-on time: 10 minutes
Time to table: 10 minutes
Serves as many as needed
Time to table: 10 minutes
Serves as many as needed
Cucumbers, peeled and sliced
Tomatoes, sliced
Fresh feta, crumbled
Olives, pitted
Fresh basil, chopped fine
Vinaigrette (looking for ideas? my challenge to Never Buy Salad Dressing Again has a couple of dozen ideas from my favorite food bloggers)
On a platter, arrange a layer of cucumbers, then a layer of tomatoes, stacking them if individual servings are desired. Arrange the feta and olives over top, then drizzle with a vinaigrette. Sprinkle the top with the basil.
KITCHEN NOTES
To get perfect tomato rounds, the end pieces need to be used for something else. Look for blocks of feta and crumble it yourself, rather than individual containers of crumbles which tend to be dry and tasteless. My friend Mary is an artist and arranged her tomatoes on a lovely glass leaf-shaped platter that belonged to her husband's mother. When I was arranging my own platter, a more typical round shape, I realized how 'artful' it was for Mary to use a platter that didn't repeat the same round shape of the cucumbers and tomatoes. Little stuff some times matters, at least a little! UPDATE Turns out, this is my favorite 'bring a dish to share' for the summer. When the tomatoes are larger than the cucumbers, I put the tomatoes on the bottom, the cucumbers on top. I often skip the olives, instead scatter just fresh feta and fresh herbs on the top, then take along a vinaigrette (just sherry vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper and a little sugar) to pour over top just before serving time. It's always a hit, people really 'get' that these are stacks and move both to their plates. 
MY FAVORITE WAYS with SUMMER TOMATOES
~ Panzanella ~
the Italian bread and tomato salad
~ fresh tomato sauce ~
~ no-cook taboulleh ~
~ more tomato recipes ~
~ more Weight Watchers recipes ~
~ more low-carb recipes ~
~ Panzanella ~
the Italian bread and tomato salad
~ fresh tomato sauce ~
~ no-cook taboulleh ~
~ more tomato recipes ~
~ more Weight Watchers recipes ~
~ more low-carb recipes ~
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Looking for healthy ways to cook vegetables? A Veggie Venture is home to hundreds of quick, easy and healthful vegetable recipes and the famous Alphabet of Vegetables. Healthy eaters will love the low carb recipes and the Weight Watchers recipes.
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