With one delicious dinner out of the way and several quarts of stock safely frozen, I used the remaining chicken (the bits I could save; N. kept snacking on succulent pieces straight from the refrigerator!) to make one of my all time favorite summer dinners.  With two more big heirlooms ready on the vine, I made a simple chicken salad from the roasted leftovers.  I shredded up the chicken into bite-sized chunks with my fingers, then added just the necessities.  Well, mostly just the necessities.  A creamy spoonful of mayonnaise.  Finely chopped dill.  Julienned yellow pole beans from our garden that I’d lightly steamed.  A handful of mixed chives and green onions, diced up.  Salt and pepper to taste.

Cut the tomatoes ¾ of the way through so that eight thick, juicy slices hang together by half an inch or so at the bottom, but begin to pull apart, leaving a perfectly ripe, red vessel for the chicken salad.

Pile it up good and high.

Sometimes for presentation’s sake, I place the tomato atop a ruffled piece of butter lettuce.  Sometimes I don’t.

Then I eat it.