Caprese Salad

This is our first Mr. Stripey tomato. It is an heirloom variety and the first time we've tried growing this kind. It's hard to tell from the picture without anything to compare it with, but this is a giant tomato, probably the length of my hand. The fruit is sweet and juicy. We used it to make caprese salad last night, although I was so hungry, I forgot to take a picture of the prepared plate.

Caprese involves tomato, fresh mozzarella and basil. We prefer to use bufala mozzarella, made from buffalo's milk rather than cow's milk. It has a distinct taste and texture, but it is more expensive. I think a ball of fresh bufala mozzarrella at Trader Joe's is around $6. But, considering our idea of eating out these days involves going to In-N-Out burger twice a month where the three of us can eat for under $11, we splurge on good food at home once in awhile.

To make caprese, I slice the tomato into 1/3" slices (it was more challenging with Mr. Stripey's odd shape) and lay them out on a large plate. Then I slice the mozzarella, only as thin as necessary depending on how many slices of tomato I have (usually we have 8-10 slices). We grind fresh pepper over the cheese, then top it with a basil leaf. Simple, but so delicious. It tastes like summer to me. Like our summer pasta, we only make this when we have home grown tomatoes in season, never with store bought tomatoes (although if we get tomatoes from our CSA farm, we will do it with those, too). So while the bufala mozzarella is expensive, we only buy it 2-3 months out of the year.

Update 7/21: Here is a picture I took 2 nights ago using another Mr. Stripey as well as two smaller red tomotoes (I'm not sure the variety).