It's the end of summer, and if you're gardening you have an excess of home-grown tomatoes still to use before they get mushy. Even if you don't have a garden, local tomatoes should be plentiful and cheap at you nearest farmer's market. If you also happen to have some all-butter puff pastry in the freezer, one of the easiest meals you can make is an easy French-style tomato tart.

Like some of my other recipes, this is more of a "kit", because there's really only two ingredients in this recipe that aren't substitutable: the homegrown tomatoes and the butter puff pastry. So, before we get to the instructions, let's go through some of the others:

Puff Pastry: You really want all-butter, or at least part-butter, puff pastry for this. We load up on the Trader Joe's frozen pastry during the winter holidays (the only time they have it); if you didn't, the rest of the year you pretty much need to grab the overpriced Dufour. You can make this with shortening-based puff pastry like Pepperidge Farms, but it won't taste quite as good, but it's still better than no tart at all. You could, of course, make your own but that changes this from a quick weeknight dinner to a major effort.

The Trader Joe's pastry comes conveniently in two 9oz squares, which makes for two nice square tarts. Dufour comes in a single 14oz rectangle, which could be either one really big tart, or cut into two for two more modest ones. For the Dufour, which is thicker and creased, you'll want to roll it out a bit.

Cheese: this recipe requires two cheeses, a soft cheese to put on the base, and a hard cheese to grate over the top. The soft cheese can be almost anything soft and mild, as long as it's not too wet: drained and blotted ricotta, chevre, farmer cheese, neufchatel, cresenza, or a mild camebert. For most cheeses, you want around 6oz per square foot of tart. You could also use a little creme fraiche, but spread it very thin since it's rather wet.

The hard cheese is easier; just 4oz of Comté, Gruyère, parmigiano, or similar cheeses, grated fine.

Tomatoes: This tart can be made either with large tomatoes, sliced 1/4" thick and shingled (photo above) or with cherry tomatoes, sliced in half and packed in, cut side down (photo below). Either works equally well, so use what you have the most of. The important thing is that the tomatoes be fresh and picked ripe.

Herbs: chives, parsley, thyme, or marjoram could all work with this tart, or a mixture. Use what you have access to -- as long as it's minced or cut fine.

In the tarts pictured, I used Black Sea Man sliced tomatoes, sungold cherry tomatoes, Don Froylan requesón cheese for the base, grated DOC Comté cheese, and minced fresh chives.

Now, on to the recipe.

Simple French-style Tomato Tart

• 14-20oz frozen puff pastry sheets
• Either 2-3lbs of large slicing tomatoes, or 2 baskets cherry tomatoes
• 6-9oz soft, but not wet, cheese (see above)
• 3-4oz hard grating cheese
• 2-3 tbs minced herbs
• Salt and pepper

A day before, put the puff pastry in the fridge to thaw.

Heat the oven to 375F with fan, or 400F if you don't have a fan.

Unroll or unfold the puff pastry. Use a rolling pin to gently roll it flat. If it's more than 1/4" thick, maybe roll it out a bit to stretch it. Place it on a baking sheet, and carefully cut a square or rectangle about 1/2" from the edge of the puff pastry, and only about 1/2 way through it (depth of about 1/8" inch). You should end up with a "frame" around the edge which will become your crust. Dock the center rectangle using a fork or a docker (if you have one).

Spread the soft cheese over the center rectangle, making a very thin coating -- thinner the wetter the cheese is. Sprinkle 1/2 of the herbs over the soft cheese, and grind a little pepper on it. If the cheese is unsalted (such as ricotta), sprinkle a little (1/4 tsp) salt as well.

Put it into the oven for 12-16 minutes, or until the frame/crust around the edge puffs up and gets browned on top. If doing two baking sheets because you have two pieces of puff pastry, then remember to swap positions on them after 5 min.

Take the cheesy pastry out of the oven and allow it to mostly cool, 10-15 minutes. Carefully cover the cheesy center with the tomatoes. Sprinkle them lightly with pepper, and then with the rest of the minced herbs. Finally cover the tomatoes with the grated hard cheese.

Place the tart back in the oven for 5-7 minutes, or until the hard cheese is melted and the crust finishes getting crisp and brown.

Allow to mostly cool before slicing. Enjoy with a French green salad.

It's now late summer, and if you have a vegetable garden like I do, you're festooned with a glut of tomatoes. Maybe you've already made gazpacho, fresh tomato sauce, Turkish salad, and more tomato things. The tomatoes keep coming in from the gardent.

It's time for something French: a tomato tart.

This recipe is pretty simple, but it does require some gourmet ingredients. It also requires you to be comfortable working with puff pastry. Since the ingredients are so critical here, some notes on them before the recipe.

This tart is really much better with all-butter puff pastry, which I realize is hard to find in the US. I used Trader Joe's, possibly the only butter puff pastry in the US that is both good and affordable, but is sadly only available seasonally (and not in summer). This recipe is sized for TJ's 18oz box of puff pastry (which comes in 2 squares). If you're using Dufour's 14oz box, or some other brand, you'll need to scale accordingly. And, if all you can get is palm-oil-based puff pastry, use it anyway -- or made your own rough puff.

The cheese I used was homemade, a Neufchâtel-style cheese I made from some raw milk a friend gave me. You won't have this, so use chèvre, ricotta, camebert (rind removed), or a similar soft cheese with mild flavor. The cheese needs to be very soft, but not too wet, so if you do use ricotta or farmer cheese make sure to drain it or press it dry.

This recipe also uses olive tapenade. French tapenade is generally very mild flavored and that's what you want here. If you can't get any, then just puree a cup of pitted ripe black olives (not canned). Another option is actually mustard; French tomato tarts often feature it instead of the tapenade.

French-style tomato tart

• 18oz fridge-temperature puff pastry
• 8-10 oz soft mild cheese (see blog post)
• 2-3 oz olive tapenade
• 6 to 8 medium tomatoes or 4 to 6 large tomatoes
• 2 tsp fresh thyme leaves, or 1 tsp dried
• 1 oz finely grated Comte, Gruyere, or Parmigiano cheese
• Fresh ground pepper
• Olive oil for drizzling
• Baking sheet(s), sharp knife, baking parchment, pie weights, rolling pin, spreading spatula

Heat the oven to 375F with fan, or 400F if you don't have a fan. Spread out the puff pastry on top of baking parchment, using one sheet of parchment for each square if using the TJ's pastry. Flatten it out a bit using the rolling pin.

Using the point of a small, sharp knife, cut around 1/8" deep square/rectangle around 1/2" from the edges of the pastry. You're making a box for the filling, where the edge of the pastry will be the "crust". Use a fork or a dough docker to dock (make indents) all over the pastry inside the box. Cut some more parchment to fit the inside of the box, place it on the pastry and pile pie weights on it to keep the center of the pastry compressed.

Bake for 15 minutes. The edge portion should puff up and the pastry should be very lightly browned and dry. If the pastry is still "wet" and the parchment won't pull free, give it another 3-5 minutes. Let cool for at least 15 minutes.

Spread the center of the pastry with the cheese and the tapenade. Which order you spread them in depends on their relative softness; you want to spread the softer thing on top.

Slice the tomatoes around 1/4" thick and cover the cheese with the slices, slightly overlapping. Sprinkle the thyme leaves across the top, along with a little ground pepper. Evenly cover with the grated Comte or Gruyere, and drizzle with a little high-quality olive oil.

Put the tart back in the oven and bake for another 12-18 minutes. It's done when the pastry finishes browning, and the tomatoes soften just slightly. Do not overcook, as it will turn into tomato/cheese soup.

Remove from the oven, slide the tart onto a cooling rack, and allow to cool for at least 10 minutes. Slice into squares. The tart can be eaten warm, but is easier to handle at room temperature. It does not reheat or freeze well; allow left overs to come to room temperature and eat them that way.

Serves four as a light meal with a green salad, or 6-8 as a first course.

I dunno about where you are, but where I am it is super-hot out. Peak of 105F (41C) today. Appalingly hot weather and peak tomato season mean one thing to me: gazpacho. It's a delicious summer dish that requires no heating anything, and is best eaten slightly chilled.

I've shared my regular gazpacho, but this time, with the sungold tomato plants making a bid to take over the entire backyard, I wanted to make something slightly different: golden gazpacho. Almost like the regular, but with a very different color and a more subtle taste.

Like the other recipe, though, this is all about the peak summer produce. Don't make this with off-season imported produce, you won't enjoy it.

Golden Gazpacho

About 2oz leftover stale white bread
1 clove garlic
1/2 large sweet yellow onion, peeled and thinly sliced crossways, about 3/4 cup
1 yellow bell pepper, roughly chopped
1 large or 2 small lemon cucumbers, roughly chopped with peel left on
1 pint of sungold tomatoes
1/2 to 1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp white pepper
1-2 Tbs quality Spanish olive oil
1 1/2 tsp sherry vinegar

Taste the sliced onion. If it's sharp, then put it in a bowl of cold water to soak for 15 minutes, and then drain.

Cut the bread into dice and put it and the garlic cloves in a food processor. Pulse until the garlic is minced and the bread broken down into crumbs.

Add the bell pepper, onion, and cucumber. Run the food processor until it breaks down to a "chunky salsa" consistency. Add the sungold tomatoes, salt, white pepper, olive oil, and vinegar. Run until the vegetables are almost, but not quite, pureed; you still want them to have a little texture.

Let sit for the flavors to blend. Taste, and add more salt, oil, or vinegar if it needs it, or even a little sugar if your tomatoes weren't that sweet. Serve, accompanied by bread and Spanish cheese.

Substitutions: the sungolds could be replaced by around 12oz-wt of ripe yellow heirloom tomatoes, diced. If you don't have sherry vinegar, use champaigne or white wine vinegar.

This simple-but-delicious Italian fish dish is called "pesce all'acqua pazza", or "fish in crazy water". Where exactly the name came from isn't clear, but it's one of the more delicious things you can make in less than 20 minutes on the stovetop. More importantly, it's tomato season, so the perfect time to make this.

Like a lot of other traditional recipes, you'll find a bunch of variations on acqua pazza. This one works for me, but feel free to play with it.

pesce all'acqua pazza

3-4 cloves garlic, sliced
3 Tbs olive oil
1 to 1.5 lbs white fish filets
1.5 cups diced fresh summer tomatoes
1/2 cup white wine
1/2 cup water
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup chopped flat leave parsley
2-4 large, thick bread slices (1 per diner)

Optional additions: 6-12 live mussels
6-12 live clams
1/4 lbs peeled shrimp

Toast or grill the bread. Put each slice in the bottom of a wide, shallow bowl.

Heat the olive oil and garlic slices in a wide (12-14"), deep skillet for which you have a lid, using medium-high heat. When the garlic starts to sizzle and color, lay the fish filets on top. Let fry for 1 minute, then cover with the chopped tomatoes and their juice. Add the mussels, clams and/or shrimp if using, scattered evenly around the pan.

Add the wine. Add enough water to make the contents of the pan a bit soupy: around 1/2" of liquid up the sides of the pan. Cover and reduce heat to medium. Cook for 10 to 15 minutes, or until the fish is done and any shellfish are open. Around 2-3 minutes before it's done, sprinkle with the chopped parsley so it has a little time to cook.

Serve each diner a portion of fish on top of the toasted bread, and then spoon a bunch of the tomato-wine soup (and shellfish) over the top, until the bread is soaked. Serves two people as a one-dish meal, or four with other courses.

Fish: most kinds of white-fleshed fish skinless filets or boned steaks will work with this: butterfish, halibut, rockfish, striped bass, etc. The recipe also works with sole, but you will need to shorten cooking times, and not do the shellfish because they take longer than the sole does to cook. Tuna and mahi-mahi are a bit strong-flavored for this recipe.

Bread: use any white-flour unsliced real bread loaf, like a nice sourdough batard. Slice it about 1/2" thick and toast it for a few minutes. Trim slices as necessary to fill bowls.