The Season’s Best Tomatoes + Crab!

After celebrating our 3rd annual Monahan’s shrimp boil last Sunday we had a few leftover ingredients. We polished off all the shrimp and the Andouille sausage but we were left with gorgeous farmer’s tomatoes, fresh thyme, purple onion and lots of lemons. In last week’s report we mentioned that tomatoes would be served in some form every night while they’re at their peak (which is now)!

Being a little tired from so much cooking at the shrimp boil, I decided to make something super simple that would highlight those lovely tomatoes. A one-plate dinner of crabmeat, some greens and of course, big chunks of Michigan tomatoes with a simple lemon thyme vinaigrette would be a perfect, easy, tasty meal! I have a few crab options at our market. Our canned lump crab has nice big chunks. The fresh Jonah crab (claw and knuckle meat), a by catch of the New England lobster fishery, are fresh picked and delicious. The last option would be to pick the meat from Alaskan king crab legs. Normally the king crab would be a pretty pricy option but because we let our customers choose their own legs, we end up with broken pieces of crab that we sell at a great discount.

I chose the king because, of course it is sweet as can be, but also the snow white meat with the bright orange on the outside is striking on any plate. Not that I would turn down lump crab or Jonah but we happen to have a good supply of broken king crab legs right now.

The farmers are loaded with tomatoes and Monahan’s is loaded with crab (we have extra fresh Jonah coming in Friday for the weekend)! So grab a baguette, make a quick crab tomato salad and call it dinner. You might just want to pack it up for a picnic by the river. Here’s the recipe.

P.S. My wife, Lisa, after dinner mentioned that some leftover corn on top and avocado slices would be a nice touch.