Tomatoes, Tomatoes everywhere

It is finally tomato season and Chicago's Green City Market has been having a lovely showing of tomatoes.  Big tomatoes. Little tomatoes. Red Tomatoes and green. 

But apparently - I took pictures of only little ones.  The Golden Honey are really wonderful.  And the Mexican Midget - aside from the funny name - has the strongest tomato flavor I have ever tasted.

I used some of the Mexican Midget's for a shepherds pie I made the other day and wow!  Tomato flavor with very little liquid.  

You know how sometimes you have to cook down a large tomato to get that tomato essence?  That pop of tomato flavor?  Well, these little babies are great for that pop and still let me be a bit of a slacker.

And, some non-tomato tomatoes, such as these. The lovely, pineapple ground cherry.   Which I've been eating like candy. So yummy!

Below is my current collection of tomatoes.  Yellow Roma's at the top are from my neighbor Jill.  As are the small round orange cherry tomatoes.  The big red tomato is a heirloom and probably a Black Krim. The yellow ones at the bottom are unknown at the moment - but very very good.  And the ones at the very right that look a bit like baby Tomatillo's... are my collection of pineapple ground cherry and actually taste like pineapples! So cool!

I was hoping for tomatoes from our garden - but that didn't happen this year. I love fresh off the vine tomatoes.  Perhaps next. 

The farmer's market is the next best thing.  If you have a market going .... and tomatoes are up.... see if you can get any of the heirlooms or sort-of heirlooms.

Green Zebras while technically not a heirloom are lovely, eating tomatoes, sweet and so very juicy.
Cherokee Purple are another one I grew a few years back and are tasty eating.  These are great for cooking as well. A soft tomato-y taste. Not like the Mexican Midget's. :)

The lovely lemon shaped ones at the bottom in the picture above (yes, yes, I know ... I have to find out what they are) are nice and crisp and went well with the milk braised pork we had for dinner tonight.

Jill's yellow Roma's don't taste like Roma tomatoes to me but are very good and if I had a ton of space to plant all the tomatoes I wanted... well, they would make my list.

As you can see... I am a tomato head at the moment. It is such a short lived season. Between that and all the berries -- I'm in fruit heaven.  Thankfully, it is a short season. *grin*