of course of course

Horseradish and Brussels sprouts are two of those ingredients that people think of as having strong, overpowering flavors, but which can be mellowed quite a lot by cooking.  In fact, horseradish can piss you off that way -- if you've ever made a roast beef with a fresh horseradish crust, you may have been disappointed to discover that it wasn't the western beef-based equivalent of a wasabi pea.

But it also makes these ingredients more widely usable.  Making Brussels sprouts inoffensive to people who don't like the cabbagey-ness of the sprouts is simple: separate the leaves and cook them quickly, whether by roasting or frying, until they start to brown.  The flavor is sweet, a little nutty, and nothing like the cruciferous flavor of boiled cabbage.

Horseradish, once it's mellowed by cooking, can nearly disappear next to other strong flavors, but can also blend with them to give you this nice flavor, sharp but not acrid or pungent, right in the middle.  

Some examples:

"Special sauce" for a hamburger: a mayonnaise made with bacon fat for the fat component and Tabasco sauce for the acid.  Grated horseradish was cooked in the hot bacon fat and then mixed in along with some of the crumbled bacon.

Trout and sprouts.  The trout was sprinkled with water and then dredged through freshly grated horseradish and a sprinkle of cornmeal, and fried in bacon fat.  The Brussels sprouts were sauteed in the same fat with a little horseradish and topped with a few bits of bacon.

Lamb chops (they're small) with sumac, over sauteed Brussels sprouts with a very simple vinaigrette (malt vinegar, preserved lemon olive oil, sumac, thyme) and Kopanisti ...

... which brings us to Kopanisti.  This is basically Greek pimento cheese, using feta.  I'm not clear on whether or not there's a more traditional cheese used for it in Greece -- I've seen conflicting statements in blogs, and I am far from an expert on Greek food, much less Greek cheese.  All I know is it certainly works well with feta: feta, roasted red peppers, a little bit of hot pepper (I used hot peppadews), and garlic, blended together.  Because feta is so much wetter than Cheddar, this is a dip rather than a spread like pimento cheese -- it's pourable, really.  It's also tasty and tangy, with a little heat and a lot of pepper flavor.

The Kopanisti also made a good sandwich, on pita bread with a few strips of roasted piquillo peppers, feta, and a handful of pea shoots for sweetness and crunch.

at last

It had been a terrible, dismal season, stormy and misfortunate.  Too little sun and too much damp.  Time and again we had been denied the crimson bounty.  The crew had near given up hope, when at last we spied it --

A tomato.

Ripe on the vine, not yet split by rains nor wracked by blight.

We set upon it like jackals.

Tomato sandwich, bourbon bacon, pepper.  The tomato isn't from my garden, but from my mother's -- my tomato plants were almost completely destroyed by blight this year.  The tomatoes I can get aren't nearly as good as last year's, but they're still better than the tomatoes that'll be available the rest of the year.

Things that benefit the most from using good fresh tomatoes: tomato sandwiches (pointless any other time of year), tomato pie (prebake a pie crust; add sliced tomatoes sprinkled with salt and pepper, top with a mixture of shredded cheddar cheese, optional dry mozzarella, and enough mayonnaise to make the cheese stick together; bake for 30 minutes), tomatoes and okra, tomatoes and scrambled eggs, pasta with minimally cooked tomatoes, and presumably tomato juice (of which I'm not really a fan).

There is also the classic hamburger:

My prescription for a good hamburger is very simple: add little or nothing to the meat (though ground bacon mixed in with the beef is a good variation), knock it off with the enormous patties, salt the surface of the patty, cook it on hot cast iron to develop a good crust, let it rest for a few minutes before putting it on the bun (Martin's potato roll) or, in a pinch, the bread.  George Motz is right -- mustard is better on hamburgers than ketchup, even if you love ketchup.

If you have some tomatoes that aren't as great -- or just too many great ones -- you can make homemade Catalina dressing, too: puree and strain the tomatoes (the straining is optional) and cook down until they start to thicken like a pasta sauce.  Add equal parts sugar and vinegar, season with salt and Worcestershire sauce until slightly too salty, add a good dose of smoked paprika, and then toss in the Cuisinart and slowly add oil until it's the consistency of salad dressing (expect to add about twice as much oil as vinegar).  Ideally, refrigerate for a day or two before using.

Underused tomato condiment: soy sauce, especially the lighter Japanese style soy sauce used with sushi.

And of course, there is the simplest tomato sandwich in the world: split a baguette, butter it, broil it, and rub a split tomato on the broiled surface, squeezing the tomato guts onto it.  Top with coarse salt.