If you are up to your eyeballs in tomatoes, now is the time to make this Tomato Crouton Casserole. To be honest, the croutons make this dish. Don’t skimp on that step. The finished casserole is delicious over rice, or as a side dish to just about anything during summer.
I had the pleasure of meeting Lisa Kivirist at a retreat right after her cookbook, The Farmstead Chef, came out. Our paths crossed during an evening writers circle and I started following her work. She runs a bed and breakfast in Wisconsin called Inn Serendipity, where most of the recipes in the cookbook were born. The copy on my shelf is cluttered with bookmarks on every other page.
Ingredients
For the croutons
- 2 cups 1/2″ cubed French baguette – we used home made sourdough
- 2 1/2 TBS olive oil
- 3/4 TSP dried oregano
- 3/4 TSP dried basil
- 3/4 TSP garlic powder – we used garlic oil instead
- 1/3 TSP salt
For the Casserole
- 2 cups croutons (above)
- 1 TSP canola oil
- 8 cups fresh tomatoes cut into wedges
- 1/2 cup melted butter – we used half butter and half olive oil
- 1 TSP salt
- 1 TBS fresh basil, finely chopped
- 1 TBS fresh thyme, finely chopped
- 3/4 cup grated hard granular cheese (parmesan)
Method
To make the croutons, preheat the oven to 350° F. Place cubed bread in a bowl and drizzle with oil and sprinkle with remaining ingredients. Toss to combine. Dump onto a rimmed baking sheet and spread out evenly. Bake at 350° for 10 to 15 minutes, until crispy and golden. Keep the oven on at this temperature – you’ll need it for the casserole.
To make the casserole, oil a 9×13″ baking dish and place the tomato wedges in the dish (shown at top). Sprinkle the croutons over the tomatoes.
Mix the melted butter, salt, and herbs and drizzle evenly over the tomato/crouton mixture.
Bake for 20 minutes, then sprinkle the cheese over the tomatoes. Return to the oven to bake 10 minutes more.
This recipe can be made vegan by substituting vegan butter and cheese. This is one of those recipes where you don’t look up the calorie count or fat grams. So just enjoy it and work out tomorrow.
Serve over brown rice with corn on the cob, or any other summer delight. It also works saddled up next to scrambled eggs in the morning. It made 6 servings for us and was even better the next day.
Find another tomato recipes through this search on Gardenerd.com.
It sure looks delicious. Tomorrow we have this on the menu 🙂
Yum !! Been roasting up a lot of heirloom tomatoes this year. This looks like a good way to give what I’ve been doing a little twist. I will give this recipe a go soon.
I was wondering why you use canola oil? I think it’s not so good for you – eh? Just curious. Also wanted to share with you about rats and tomatoes…..got smart this year. I put plastic bags around the clusters or individual tomatoes so the rats couldn’t get to them. I used plastic baggies from bread loaves, plastic produce bags, or the bags with handles from the grocery store and ziplocks I had saved (any bag really) then wrapped it around the tomatoes and waited for them to ripen up. I could see them ripening as the bags are clear. Worked like a charm. Just thought I would share that info with you. I know you said that you didn’t get lucky with the traps so far. We have caught a number of rats that way. Have you used peanut butter? I am sure you have heard it’s good, but figured I would mention it just in case. We used Tomcat traps. Very easy to set without them going off as you set them. Thanks for all the good recipes and reports and podcasts. Love your newsletters !!
I use Certified non-GMO canola oil that is organic, so it’s the least of the evils. It’s a neutral oil that doesn’t flavor the recipe. If I don’t mind the flavor influence, I use olive oil. Always organic.
Thanks for sharing your plastic bag trick! I have seen the mesh bags work, and have heard that plastic bags work when protecting apples, but it’s good to know it worked on your tomatoes too! We do use peanut butter in our traps and the problem is that our traps are older and weak so they trigger the trap, then wait for it to snap, then go back for the peanut butter. New traps are on the way, so we’ll report back our findings. My brother recently experimented with cheeses and found that Swiss did the trick for his rats. I imagine they are connoisseurs of different baits in different regions.