Tomato - Brandywine / Tomato and Cucumber Salad

I've been eating home grown brandywine tomatoes my whole life. They are a wonderful flavor packed heirloom tomato. With a beautiful pink blush, they have a perfect balance of sweet and acidic.  Large and meaty, they are great for slicing and chopping.

Brandywine tomato

One of my favorite things to make with tomatoes is cucumber and tomato salad. I often make it with tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet onions, basil, red wine vinegar, oil, salt, and pepper. 

The salad pictured below is made of one brandywine tomato, a few cherry tomatoes, five small pickling cucumbers, a splash of olive oil, a tablespoon chopped basil, salt, and freshly ground pepper. The tomatoes, cucumbers, and basil were fresh from the garden. In this particular version left out the vinegar and onions, so as to fully savor the pure freshness of the tomatoes and cucumbers. It was fantastic.

If you are dressing a salad like this a good base ratio of vinger to oil is 2:1.  And if you can, use olive oil. 

Cucumber Tomato Salad

Last night I had this salad served alongside quinoa topped with steamed kale with a honey mustard dressing.  My family also grilled shrimp that had been marinated in a margarita marinade (made with tequila, triple sec, lime, garlic, salt, pepper and oil I believe). The shrimp is not vegetarian, but I know not all of my readers are vegetarian either, so I figured I would mention it.