I feel like Mildred Pierce

It's been the best year I've ever had for tomatoes - all the sun and more plants than I've had before. I've exceeded my ambition to can 50 jars of sauce,  have made pounds of oven roasted Juliet tomatoes and 8 bottles of ketchup so I decided, as my mother says "A change is a good as a rest" - time to make something else. (Of course my mother is completely wrong - there is no substitute for a rest. But it is a good mantra to help one soldier on). So here is my recipe for Tomato Pie. I make it on a few occasions every year but today I thought I would make a few and try freezing them. Unfortunately the pie plates are a little less than attractive.

1. Make your favourite pie dough. Because this is a savoury pie I sometimes substitute a little of the butter with 5 year cheddar cheese. Today I threw in a little smoked paprika to give that Ritz cracker colour.

2. Brush the inside of the crust with dijon mustard.

3. Cover the bottom of the pie with one layer of tomatoes. I made one with black heirlooms, one with Persimmon heirloom tomatoes, another with Tlacalulas and the others with Beefsteak.

Left to right: Persimmon tomatoes, Tlacalula  and assorted black heirlooms

4. Cover with the tomato layer with slices of mozzarella cheese.

5. Add another layer of tomatoes. Tuck in basil leaves (although I didn't have any today so for some of the pies I used marjoram and for others mint (which I think actually goes surprisingly well with tomatoes).)

marjoram on the left, mint on the right

6. Grind sea salt and pepper over the surface.

7. Drizzle with olive oil.

Parmesan ready to be grated and added to the grated mozzarella

8. Sprinkle grated mozzarella and parmesan over the surface.

waiting for the grated parmesan...

9. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes to an hour.