Slow Roasted Tomatoes

Smitten Kitchen has been sweet reading for me since I found it about a year ago. Deb's writing is great and her photos are just lovely. As you might know, we grew tomatoes last summer and sometimes ran out of ideas for how to use them...Deb helped us out.

Here's her recipe for Slow Roasted Tomatoes. Check out her post here.

Slow Roasted Tomatoes

Cherry, grape or small Roma tomatoes
Whole gloves of garlic, unpeeled
Olive oil
Herbs such as thyme or rosemary (optional)

Preheat oven to 225°F. Halve each cherry or grape tomato crosswise, or Roma tomato lengthwise and arrange on a parchment-lined baking sheet along with the cloves of garlic. Drizzle with olive oil, just enough to make the tomatoes glisten. Sprinkle herbs on, if you are using them, and salt and pepper, though go easily on these because the finished product will be so flavorful you’ll need very little to help it along.

Bake the tomatoes in the oven for about three hours. You want the tomatoes to be shriveled and dry, but with a little juice left inside–this could take more or less time depending on the size of your tomatoes.

Either use them right away or let them cool, cover them with some extra olive oil and keep them in the fridge for the best summer condiment, ever. And for snacking.

Here are our specimens from last August:




Good on sammiches:


The natural sweetness of the tomato is astounding. They're like candy.

Well, as you may know, tomato season is far behind us at this point. I stop buying tomatoes completely in the winter minus the occasional carton of cherry tomatoes. I mean, those pale pink mealy things you find at this time of year are offensive! It's not that I think we should have tomatoes year round, but I miss them terribly. Tomatoes and watermelon: the only two reasons I endure the Tennessee summer. I'm rambling here, but this past week I was really craving some candied tomatoes, so I took a carton of cherry maters and slow roasted them with some garlic. They've been very tasty in the quesadillas we've been subsisting on since I started student teaching.