Tomato Bread Pudding

It's the height of tomato season on Long Island and this year's crop is incredibly good.  The heat and the sun have given us not only red beauties but all kinds of heirloom varieties and lots of choices in cherry tomatoes--from yellow to red to purple.  I really wait all year to make dishes that are meant for fresh tomatoes.  Sorry, not even those "tomatoes on the vine" can compete with the flavor and goodness of a summer tomato...although I have to admit, grape tomatoes really can hit the spot.  But of all the tomato dishes we've been gorging ourselves on, this recipe for a Tomato Bread Pudding is right at the top of our list.  

Lemon Lime Bars

        I know I’ve mentioned Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito before.  They’re two of my heros because they fled the Advertising business for a bakery in Red Hook, Brooklyn and haven’t looked back.  Instead, they’re the authors of one of Andrew’s go-to sources for fantastic baking recipes: “Baked: New Frontiers in Baking” (Stewart, Tabori & Chang 2008). (See my “Black Forest Cookies” post.) Matt and Renato’s bio says that “after years in the Advertising business”, they decided to open a bakery in 2005.  Well, all I can say is baking must make you stay forever young because they look like they just got out of school.  One look at them and I think you too will highly recommend their career change to anyone who wants to improve their looks and their lives.