Jump to Recipe

Do you all watch cooking shows? I obsess over them, but just one at a time, like binge eating. Some only have a few episodes that are recycled into oblivion – honestly I’ve watched Erin make English muffins three times, like I don’t know how it’s going to end …deliciously. There are few stalwarts, like this pioneerwho’s baby girl voice makes using two sticks of butter seem so innocent.I’m lured in by her lifestyle and her homeschooling the kids and her kind of old fashioned everything except for super white teeth and her camera ease and then all the butter again. The kids rustle cattle and work farm equipment and then get a collective lesson in history despite their 10 year age range. My new fave isHeartland Table with Amy Theilen. She’s pedigreed in world class cuisine and yet moved back to her little Minnesota home in the woods to cook for her family. Her pots and pans are caked with yesterday’s meals and I swear there’s an air of bitterness in her attitude perhaps from the winters , but her recipes are clever and approachable. Is it wrong that I keep expecting to see a woodchipper in her back yard? I have made this easy, easy marinated cherry tomato salad from Heartland Table at least twenty times. The secret flavor in the marinade is a hint of sweetness to bring out tomatoes’ natural flavors.

Marinated tomatoes become the salad’s dressing, so you can make the tomatoes ahead of time and compile the salad with arugula and shaved parmesan cheese when you’re ready to serve.

Even though the family loves this salad, I make it a lunch for one quite often, when I learn and burn through the latest episode of my cooking show of the moment.