I can't think of anything more appealing to eat right about now than tomato pie. My pal Suzette has been whipping them up for the last few weeks and swooning about how divine they are. Her rampant enthusiasm meant that I'd been meaning to rustle up one of my usual yummy ones anyway, when I had a spot of inspiration yesterday. We just returned from a stellar weekend at the Homestead which afforded all sorts of over-the-top culinary experiences when we weren't mindlessly floating around in the Jefferson Pools in Hot Springs. Anyway, yesterday when I reached for one of the frozen homemade dough balls I keep handy to make a pie whenever the mood strikes, I had a flash of a particularly tasty pimento cheese sandwich I ate at tea in the Grand Hall on Sunday. A new taste treat was born.
Pimento Cheese Tomato Pie
2 large tomatoes, (preferably Hanover tomatoes if you're from around here) thinly sliced salt
1 large Vidalia onion (or other sweet onion), peeled and thinly sliced
1 batch of Clare's pimento cheese
1 pie shell, either homemade or store-bought
It couldn't have been any easier. Of course, if you don't have homemade pastry in your freezer, a store-bought one will suffice. I sliced two large Hanover tomatoes, lightly salted them and let the slices sit on paper towel for an hour to drain as much water from them as possible. I rolled out the thawed dough ball and put it in a large pie pan with the lip of the dough extending about half an inch above the side of the pie plate. I par-baked it for about 10 minutes in a pre-heated 350 degree oven, leaving the oven on while I finished assembling the pie . I left the shell to cool while I quickly whipped up a batch of my pimento cheese, the recipe for which I've already posted here on ClareFare.
Next I covered the bottom of the pie shell with a layer of the drained, sliced tomatoes and then a layer of thinly sliced Vidalia onion. On top of that I blobbed several tablespoons full of pimento cheese and then made the layers all over again, ending with pimento cheese.
I baked this lovely conglomeration for about an hour in the oven and we all swooned when it came out. You know the only thing in the world better than tomato pie? It's pimento cheese tomato pie!