Another Man in the Kitchen

Last week I got to escape the office for half a day to drive down to Camden, SC to do a safety audit on one of our groundwater monitoring teams. These are fun to do because the team gets an advance warning, we all are audited each week in the field by each other (so it's not stressful) and it gives an office person a chance to get out in the great outdoors for a few hours. It's been super hot and humid here, though, so it's not the ideal conditions for anyone to be outdoors.

I arrived on site just in time to get the last of a passing thunderstorm which made the mugginess more muggy and brought all the bugs out of the woodwork. I put on my steel toe boots and safety glasses and stepped out of the car into the meadow where the guys were working. Instantly I could not see because my glasses steamed up. But luckily, Ken was ingenious and had bought an industrial fan and matching industrial-strength power inverter for the car so that they had torrent of wind blowing across the tailgate and camp chairs they had set up by the well. Since every well was taking several hours to stabilize, they decided that they should take the time to set up as comfortably as possible at each location. Being pregnant, I was given "top fan position" with the cushiest chair. What gentlemen!

A good part of any decent safety audit is getting caught up on chit chat, finding out the woes of the field work, the adventure, the tales, and I likewise act as informant on office news, deadlines and other unpleasantries. Although I work with Ken all the time because we are in the same office, I don't see Woody very often because he's out of our Alabama office. So it was fun to see him. A highlight of the safety audit was the recipe that Woody described to me in detail. He hails from Tennessee and told me about this famous Tomato Pie recipe that he made that weekend. By the end of his impromptu cooking show (hand motions to demonstrate, colorful descriptors and passion), my mouth was watering with the thought of bacon and tomatoes. On the drive home I even stopped at a convenience store (no grocery stores en route for the whole hour drive) to buy the necessary cheese. What a pie it turned out to be!! I will share with you this secret:

Woody's Tomato Pie (this is probably not on the Weight Watchers menu)

Three large tomatoes (or so), chopped and well drained of juice (or you get soggy crust)
one baked pie crust (you can do 2 parts whole wheat flour to one part all purpose for more fiber)
one large onion
handful of fresh basil chopped or equivalent dried basil
about 6 slices of cooked bacon, chopped
1 cup of light mayonnaise (I used the olive oil mayo- turned out good)
1 cup of cheese (I used a combo pack of mozzarella, asiago, cheddar and provolone)
salt and pepper

Prepare and bake your pie crust at 350 for about 15 minutes. meanwhile chop and drain the tomatoes and onions, pick your basil and wash and chop and get the bacon cooking and drained. Chop bacon into small pieces. Once the crust is done, spread a layer of tomatoes, a layer of onion and sprinkle with bacon and basil. Repeat until all veggies/bacon have been placed in the crust. Season with salt and pepper and spread the mayo over the top of the pie like frosting. Then top with cheese and bake at 350 for about 1/2 hour. Serve with a fresh salad. This refrigerates well and tastes even better the next day!