Difficulty Level Easy

Here is a fun little recipe that takes little time to prepare and is absolutely perfect for a Labour Day party. You can get little heirloom grape or cherry tomatoes at the farmers markets right now. If you get heirloom tomatoes, you'll have a really pretty array of colours in your serving dish. Serve it in individual martini or aperitif glasses with just a few tomatoes in each glass.

After soaking in vodka the tomatoes are pretty potent, so you won't need more than a few tomatoes per person. Other than taking five minutes to put the tomatoes in the glasses and garnish, all the work is done hours ahead of time when you peel them. It sounds like a lot of labour to peel the tomatoes, but they really do just slip out of the skins after you drop them in the boiling water. Don't leave them for longer than the 15 seconds suggested, or they will start to cook. Be sure to use sea salt, or at least coarse salt, because the chunks of salt give you a burst of flavour that you just can't get with table salt.

This recipe serves 8, so plan accordingly. I just made it for my husband and myself, so I chose the number of tomatoes I wanted and then just covered them with vodka, without really measuring it. Be sure to save the vodka when you drain the tomatoes. It made darn fine Bloody Marys.

INGREDIENTS