Day 132 / Day 67 - You say tomato, I say dinner

For those who can't remember what the "Day 132 / Day 67" means, it means the Aerogarden Tomatoes have been growing for 132 days, and the Aerogarden lettuce and Holiday Herbs have been there for 67 days.

Dedicated readers of this blog know that I've been a little frustrated with my Aerogarden tomato set. Well, check out what's been happening in the last two weeks:

That's right, all I had to do was ignore it for a few weeks, and all of a sudden, there are at least a dozen new little flowers and tomatoes growing! Still not the bountiful crop I had first envisioned, but then again, it's more than just three. I guess I must have just gotten a late bloomer seed kit. Let's hope these little flowers grow up to be nice tomatoes.

Speaking of which, here's their fearless leaders. And yes, today is the day I'm picking them! The tomatoes have been bright red for a while, and when I squeeze them, they're just the slightest bit plump. From my old gardening days, I know that's the sign they're ready.

A couple of their golden harvest brethren appear ripe for the picking too. They turned out to be a bit smaller, but they're bright yellow and plump.

It was a momentous occasion: four months since planting those little seed pods, I'm finally harvesting my first crop of three red tomatoes and four yellow tomatoes.

Of course, I didn't know what to expect. For all I know, I could cut open the tomatoes and find who-knows-what in there. So I sliced open a tomato in a dramatic way reminiscent of the old Ginsu knife commercials (you know, after they sliced the tin can), and this is what I found:

Yep, that's a tomato all right.

The next step was thinking of what to do with them. I decided to go the boring route and put them in a garden salad. Not just any salad, but a salad made up of leaves from the lettuce Aerogarden, which had grown back to its former glory. I figured this would be the first meal I create 100% with home-grown vegetables.

I know you were expecting something dramatic, so where I lack creativity in the recipe, I'll make up for it in what they call on Iron Chef the "Plating".

Of course, it wouldn't be complete without a unibrow made up of Catalina Dressing:

And now, what you probably want to know: how did the tomato taste. Well, it tasted...like a tomato! It was juicy, slighty sweet, and thank goodness didn't taste at all like "nutrient tablet", as I'd feared it might.

And so there you have it. The fruit of 132 days of indoor gardening. Let's see what the next 132 days bring...