Lunch Attempt: Gourmet's Beefsteak Tomato, Butterhead lettuce, Bacon with Blue Cheese Dressing

It's been a busy week, so we cut ourselves some slack and went for the rare, less intense lunch attempt. The laws that govern lunch attempts are much more relaxed than those of regular attempts.

For example: the first two words of this dish are Beefsteak Tomato. Even if we hadn't had some of Jodi and Neal's homegrown Roma tomatoes they'd given us on hand, I know that--what with this being a teeny tiny lunch attempt--we wouldn't have suffered through this gross sounding type of tomato.

Also, we didn't have a bug plate for the picture below, so we substituted a ceramic piggy bank (obviously). Again, it's a lunch attempt--all bets are off.

This salad looked awesome and it's close to being the only dish from the insane September issue of Gourmet that we have yet to attempt. So, here goes.

Gourmet's version:

Our version:

As mentioned, these are the roma tomatoes from Jodi and Neal's garden. Better name for tomato type: Roma or Beefsteak? Puhlease. Also noteworthy: according to wikipedia, common varieties of Beefsteak tomatoes include Beefmaster, Big Beef, and the Bucking Bronco. Who comes up with these?

Proof positive that Bon Appetempt washes their Butterhead lettuce.

The prep for this dish is pretty labor-intensive (on opposite day)--it amounts to little more than chopping scallions.

The bacon is the only element that requires actual cooking, but it's an essential component as, and here's a surprise (I mean, Gourmet talks about it like it's a surprise, but I really don't think so considering my last bacon-related attempt), the fat is used in the blue cheese dressing.

Matt's motto is if it's food, it can be paired with Blue Cheese dressing, though this was the first time we actually made our own, which, in keeping with the theme, was pretty simple: milk, sour cream, blue cheese, scallions, cider vinegar, bacon fat, salt and pepper.

Lunch attempt success.

RECIPE via Gourmet:

Ingredients

• 6 bacon slices, chopped
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 3 tablespoons whole milk plus additional if necessary
• 2 tablespoons cider vinegar
• 1 scallion, chopped
• 1 cup crumbled blue cheese (1/4 pound), divided
• 1 (1/2-pound) head Bibb or Boston lettuce
• 1 large beefsteak tomato, cut into wedges

Preparation

Cook bacon in a 10-inch skillet over medium heat until crisp. Transfer to paper towels to drain, reserving fat in skillet.
Whisk together 1 tablespoon hot bacon fat, sour cream, milk, vinegar, and 1/4 teaspoon each of salt and pepper until smooth. Stir in scallion and 2/3 cup blue cheese. Thin with additional milk if desired.
Quarter lettuce lengthwise (through stem) into wedges, then remove core and arrange each wedge on a plate with tomato wedges. Stir dressing and spoon over top. Sprinkle with bacon, remaining 1/3 cup blue cheese, and pepper to taste.