Tomato Cobbler

This recipe appeared as my column in last week's edition of The Hinton Voice. 

{Last year I planted 4 tomato plants, and did I ever have an abundance of tomatoes!  Even though my husband and I enjoy our fair share of tomato filled recipes, we couldn’t keep up with how many our garden produced.  There was a point in the summer when nearly everyone who walked through our door left with some.  This year I decided to curb it back to only 2 plants, 1 large variety, and 1 smaller, cherry variety.  I don’t know how it happened, but even though we have half as many plants, we still have a ton of tomatoes - I manage to pick dozens, every few days.  After our fill of tomato cheddar sandwiches and cherry tomato salads, I knew I had to find another use for them, and fast. 

I have been on a bit of a cobbler kick, what with it being summer and all.  My Gramma has the most amazing fruit cobbler recipe of all time – which, even though it would appear as though my opinion would be incredibly bias, I can assure you it is not.  Every single person that has had the privilege of trying my Gramma’s cobbler can vouch that it’s simply the best (you can find this recipe at http://www.cookingwithjax.com/2014/07/cherry-cobbler.html).   This recipe works with literally any type of fruit, so as I was looking through the fruit crisper for to see what combination I could come up with, the cherry tomatoes caught my eye. I knew that my Gramma’s sweet cobbler crust wouldn’t fair very well with something as savory as tomatoes, so I decided to top it with a biscuit type dough instead, and threw in a handful of extra sharp cheddar for good measure.

Even though the idea sounded good in my head, I wasn’t really sure what to expect once it came down to tasting it.  I have to admit up until the moment I took the first bite, I wasn’t really sure if this recipe would be a hit or a miss.  Sure it looked pretty, but what would it taste like?  Turns out pretty darn good.  It kind of reminded me of a slightly more sophisticated version of tomato soup with grilled cheese sandwiches.  It was so good in fact, that now I might have to consider planting another cherry tomato plant next year after all.}

Recipe makes 6 servings

  

Ingredients

- 1 tbsp olive oil or butter

- 1 large onion, sliced thinly

- 2-3 cloves garlic, minced

- salt & pepper, to taste

- 1 tbsp brown sugar

- 2 tbsp roughly chopped basil

- 2 lbs cherry tomatoes

- ½ cup water or chicken broth

For Crust

- 2 cups all purpose flour

- 4 tsp baking powder

- ¼ tsp sea salt

- 1.5 tbsp brown sugar

- 1 ½ cups sharp cheddar, shredded

- 5 tbsp cold butter

- 2 eggs

- ¾ cup heavy cream

Directions

Pre-heat a cast iron frying pan over medium heat (you can use a regular frying pan you will just have to transfer everything into a casserole dish before baking).

Melt butter in frying pan, then sauté onions until lightly translucent.  Add garlic, basil, salt, pepper and brown sugar.  Continue to cook for 1-2 minutes.

Add tomatoes and simmer until they start to blister ever so slightly (about 8-10 minutes).  Stir in water or chicken broth and turn off burner. 

Crust

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees.

Combine flour, baking powder, sea salt, brown sugar and cheddar.  Add butter and combine with hands until mixture resembles coarse meal.

In a small bowl, whisk eggs and cream together, then add to flour mixture.  Mix until just combined.

Break dough into 6 biscuits and drop on top of hot tomato mixture.  Bake for 20-25 minutes, until biscuits are golden brown and tomato mixture is bubbling.

Nutritional Info (1/6^th of recipe)

Calories - 393   Fat – 23    Carbs – 35     Protein - 15   Fibre – 3

Enjoy!