2025, Food, home, Nature

I’ll Quit Writing About Tomatoes One of These Days. I Swear.

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You’d think that with all the tomato dishes we’ve had in the last few weeks that I would not be craving yet another tomato recipe.  The last couple of days I’ve been thinking about pizza – specifically Boludo’s, which we haven’t had in a while.  But the combination of my knee (had therapy yesterday morning and was quite sore) and all the tomatoes on the counter and all the pesto in the fridge overtook my desire to order in.

Pizza dough with olive oil, pesto and thinly sliced Romas (and I did NOT cut myself on the mandolin!!!) with some assorted shredded cheeses I found in the cheese drawer.  Topped with some salt and pepper and then some more shredded parmesan that I had leftover from lunch a few days ago.  Turned out rather well, if I do say so myself.

When was the last time you ordered in?

33 thoughts on “I’ll Quit Writing About Tomatoes One of These Days. I Swear.”

  1. We took 20 lbs of Brandywine and San Marzano tomatoes to work yesterday. One of the secretaries and her daughters in law needed some for canning. It has been years since we ordered in when we’ve been at home.

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  3. We get take-out rarely and never have it delivered. Last take-out was probably Chinese from Bill’s Garden on 42nd St. and 28th Ave. that’s not particularly close to our house but Bill’s dishes are generous and tasty and, inexplicably, we no longer have a decent Chinese restaurant in our immediate neighborhood.

    Take-out pizzas left us unsatisfied. The best ones seemed overpriced for what they were and many didn’t travel well, even when we picked them up ourselves.

    Trader Joe’s sold a ready-to-use pizza dough inexpensively and it was quite good. We evolved a procedure wherein we would partially precook the crust on a heated pizza stone before adding the toppings (Rao’s pizza sauce, a sprinkle of parmesan, fresh basil leaves, pepperoni and ample fresh mozzarella) and finishing the bake.

    Then, sometime this summer, Trader Joe’s changed the supplier for their dough and the new dough is terrible. It’s like cardboard. We tried it three times, thinking we must have gotten a bad batch but they all were bad. I can’t believe that the powers-that-be could have approved the new supplier if they had sampled it.

    Last pizza I made, I prepared my own dough. Basically, it just means I have to plan ahead a little more to allow the dough to begin rising but the result is worthy of the toppings.

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    1. I agree that the Trader Joe’s dough is not as good. However, the herb dough appears to be unchanged so I may be going with that in the future.

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    2. Oh no! We’ve used Trader Joe’s pizza dough for years for Friday night pizza. We haven’t made it during the summer and haven’t tried the new dough. What a disappointment. Maybe we’ll have to start making our own dough too—good reason to use the 00 pizza flour I bought a while ago.

      We don’t get delivery because you never know how long the food has been riding around before you finally get it. And out here in the suburbs, there just aren’t a lot of restaurants that we like who do delivery. We get occasional take out: burgers from My Burger or pizza from a couple of local places.

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  4. During Covid I ordered grocery delivery 4 times and they never got it right. I was protecting myself so I could keep visiting Sandra. I too have not had food delivered in a long time, decades. I have ordered for pickup. I have 20-30 restaurants within a mile and a half of me. Makes me think I should go to the decent hole-in-the-wall Chinese place. Have not been there in awhile. I go to the Crisp & Green a half mile from me every now and then to get take out.

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  5. Robert Redford has died. He was a pillar. His movie, Ordinary People is at the top of my list of best movies ever. RIP to a great actor, director artist and Sundance founder.

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    5. I think his looks led to him being underrated as an actor. Today I saw a clip from a Twilight Zone episode he did in the early 60s (playing a very gentle Death) and he was really good. One of his last films, All is Lost, is excellent.

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  6. I rarely order food delivery, but I do order a North Shore Pizza when I go up to Two Harbors. I really liked their pizza the first time I had it. The last one I had up there wasn’t as good. I don’t eat the whole thing, and save some for future lunches. I don’t like to pack food and bring it up there, and I’m tired when I get there, so I don’t want to leave and go back into town to buy something to cook. So I wimp out and order a pizza and just enjoy being there, because it really is so peaceful. I sit on the patio overlooking the lake with a nice glass of red wine and enjoy!

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  7. When I can finally cook here (new stove comes tomorrow), I’m going to make a pizza like yours in the header photo, VS! That looks so good! I also want to find that recipe for tomato-lentil soup that Renee posted and throw some tomatoes and lentils into the crock pot!

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      2. And I used regular lentils because I didn’t wanna have to try to explain to YA where to get anything other than just a plastic bag of them at the corner store.

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  8. I can’t remember when we last ordered food in, certainly not since we’ve been in Winona (9 years) – for pizza, we would go and get Papa Murphy’s.

    That does look delicious, VS, and is inspiring me to try that once the weather cools down again.

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  9. The tart I made used puff pastry brushed with sour cream. Then sliced tomatoes, red onion on top. Baked at 400° for 35 minutes or so, then topped with 3/4 cup of fresh ricotta and drizzled with pesto. It helps to salt the tomatoes before you put them on the pastry as that draws the moisture out .

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  10. When pressed for time, I used to make pizzas much like VS’s but using Trader Joe’s frozen naan for the crust. Topped with pesto, parmesan, thinly sliced roma tomatoes and mozzarella the naan made quite an acceptable base. Plus, you can keep them on hand in the freezer and use as many or as few as you like.

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  11. My favorite local pizza place doesn’t deliver. I’m used to picking up my food if I’m thinking about takeout.

    Not so long ago, though, I was with a group of friends for card games, and we had pizzas delivered.

    When I worked at the flower shop, we had a phone number that was very close to a Domino’s pizza. We would occasionally get a call from someone who didn’t listen to the name of the shop when we picked up. “Could I get a large ultimate pepperoni and an order of stuffed cheesy bread?” I once took a call from a very giggly girl with some backup gigglers in the background, first trying to order a pizza, and then switching gears and ordering a dozen roses. When we got to the payment method, I had to explain that when you send someone flowers you don’t ask the recipient to pay for them. Much giggling, hangup click.

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    1. If you switched the first two numbers of my phone number in TH, you got the co-chair of the centennial committee back in 1984, which was a major event. Every so often someone would call to talk to one of us and be confused why they got the other. If you switched the last two numbers you got a restaurant that would do take out.

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      1. The first 12 years that I worked at BI, the last two numbers of my extension if you switched them were the last two digits of the head of accounting’s phone I rarely got a wrong call with the exception of my boss, who repeatedly called me when she meant to call him. And I always knew what was happening because as soon as I picked up my phone and said who I was, there’d be a long pause and then she would heave a big sigh and apologize.

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        1. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

          I do a bit of take out (maybe once per month) but not delivery. I go get it.

          I have told this before, but it is too good to not say it. When I lived in Shakopee, prefix 445 my phone number was the same as the disreputable Golden Steer motel, prefix 455, near the old stock yards. Some lady thought her husband was having an affair there and kept calling my number, including at midnight, looking for the husband and she refused, REFUSED, to believe me when I said she had the wrong number. This was the olden days before cell phones, so I turned off the ringer and disconnected the phone from the wall to get some sleep at night. She was pretty upset.

          After enough of that, I was upset too.

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  14. Well.

    We eat out a lot. I found it interesting “Order In” or Take out, eat out.

    Course we’re too far out to get delivery. Well, in the traditional old ways. A few years ago when I was dealing with all my health issues, someone gave us one of those food delivery things. We never used it.

    But we do eat out or get take out every Friday. That’s something daughter created. And Saturdays are pizza nights. We have 6 or 7 places that do gluten free for daughter.
    Last Saturday we met three friends for pizza. We needed a separate table for the four pizzas!

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