Raisin bread and tomato

I didn't take a photo.

I made raisin bread in the Pullman pan. I'm learning.

I learned the pan can be used as handy bread box. It works very well.

I wish I had picked up the fresh goat cheese when I bought the tomatoes today. But I don't care for it that much. I had a hunch it would be good in combination, but I didn't dare it today. Now I wish that I had.

All I want is tomato on bread. The guy at Whole Foods told me the ones I am looking at are Beefsteak tomatoes. Nice to have a name for them. A few years ago buying from that table of weird tomatoes was an experiment. How good can an orange tomato be? How good can a tomato with deep ridges be? Tomatoes with black spots? Come on. Turns out, very good. Very very good. When in season, like right now.

Turns out the tomatoes are actually Cœur de Bœuf, a relative of Beefsteak tomatoes. French relative, apparently.

You must buy these tomatoes. You must.

Or else you're short changing yourself out of something extraordinary for summer.

But the bread I made is not for this. I make bread by tossing things into a bowl. Water first, yeast, sugar, some flour. I noticed the ginger powder near the cinnamon in the cabinet so I used that too.  I like both of those things. What the heck.

And I used a lot of brown sugar. This will be sweet bread. Like cinnamon rolls.

I don't bother measuring anything except for the water, and that determines the size of the dough wad. I add salt at late stage so it doesn't interfere with yeast. And that causes me to forget it sometimes. But I'm getting a lot better at remembering to add it after the yeast is well started.

I didn't have raisins so I used craisins instead. Then I saw the jar of jumbo raisins. So my bread has both raisins and craisins. A lot of them. I thought of adding pecans and then thought, you know, you always go overboard.

I made an open-face combination of raisin/craisin/cinnamon/ginger bread, mayonnaise, and Cœur de Bœuf tomato and I'm having a mouth-orgasm right now. It's simply the BEST little snack that I ever made. And now I'm convinced the goat cheese would be great. It's the sweetness of the bread, the tartness of the craisins, the depth of the cinnamon and creamy egg-fat of the mayonnaise in combination with these extraordinary tomatoes that is simply outstanding.

Outstanding and simple.

"Queen Elizabeth, here, have some tomato on cinnamon/ginger bread with craisins and raisins."

"No thank you, Dear. I'm not hungry at all. I have a very delicate disposition, you know."

"HAVE SOME I SAID!"

"Well, since you put it that way, mmm, num, mum munch chew mong myung myung myumg yum slurp, myung mung mung slurp, chew mum, BURP mum myug myng. Yes. This is very nice. Thank you for recommending it, young man."

This is the bread buttered in toast form. Not nearly so good as the tomato version.