Thursday
Apr162009
Dara's Oven-Dried Tomatoes
It's 5:00 in the Rainier Valley. By 6:00 I have to make an appetizer, get the kids' shoes on (figure 45 minutes for that), drop them off on Capitol Hill, and be at a meeting in Issaquah (effectively across the continent at this point). Thank God I have leftover olive tapenade from Easter. I'll just pretty it up a little, find that scarred knob of goat cheese in the back of my fridge, and scrounge for some crackers. Okay--5:10. That's done.
EXCEPT that two-year-old Loretta just pulled the bowl of tapenade off the counter, and I now have glass shard tapenade. I love my friends at the Community Consulting Partnership (CCP) meeting I'm going to, so I can't bring it. Quick--what else? I have a cantaloupe sitting on the counter. I cut it up, toss it with some mint, simple syrup, lime juice, and gray sea salt. It would have been a blog-worthy success story except the cantaloupe is not only unripe--it actually tastes strangely metallic. Wyatt is still in the living room making a giant art project involving small scraps of paper, and hasn't even gotten his socks on yet. I yell at him. And I take the crappy cantaloupe anyway.
One of the side effects of a food-focused life is that people generally expect you to bring edible things to potlucks. I was flagrantly promoting my food blog to my CCP friends, and Steve said, "What did you bring tonight?" I mumbled something about being in a hurry and hoped he hadn't put any of my cantaloupe on his plate.
Thankfully, I am not the only one in CCP that is food-focused, and we always share a wonderful meal together as part of our meeting. The highlight of this month's meal for me was Dara's oven-roasted tomatoes. Maybe no one noticed how many I ate. I was downright selfish about it. I had just had a traumatic hour, after all.
Dara roasted her tomatoes at 150 degrees overnight (8ish hours, I'm assuming?) in the oven, and they were better than candy. Chewy, oily, a tiny bit firm, speckled with bits of garlic and herbs. She served them with crackers and chevre, and I couldn't get them out of my mind. I've made them before, but never with canned tomatoes. I could wax poetic about canned tomatoes all day, but I'll save that for another posting. I haven't bought fresh tomatoes in months because they are so anemic this time of year.
There are so many things you can do with these. You'll see a pasta recipe here pretty soon. If they didn't take so long, I'd have them around all the time. And they bear no relation to those pieces of bark labeled "sun-dried tomatoes" in the store, don't worry. I roasted mine at 200 degrees for six hours, and they turned out softer than Dara's. You can also make more of a tomato confit if you do 300 degrees for 2 or 3 hours. Whichever way you do it, you will want to down the whole tray right there. And you won't feel like yelling at your kids anymore.
Dara's Oven-Dried Tomatoes
2 28-oz. cans peeled whole roma tomatoes
3/4 c. extra virgin olive oil
handful chopped fresh herbs (I used rosemary and thyme, which, despite my brown thumb, are from my yard)
2 cloves minced garlic (didn't use garlic in mine this time)
couple big pinches of coarse salt
1 ts. sugar
Drain tomatoes and reserve juice for something else. Halve the tomatoes and spread out on a baking sheet. Pour olive oil and sprinkle herbs, garlic, salt, and sugar over them.
Bake at 200 degrees for six hours. I obsessively check them just because I can't wait to sink my teeth in, but they don't need any monitoring. As I mentioned, Dara just went to bed.
When they're done, you an keep them in the refrigerator for quite awhile. I love them room temperature, so I just kept mine in a covered bowl because I knew they wouldn't last more than 24 hours.
April 16, 2009
Reader Comments (7)
Look out everyone, you know what week this is gonna be don't you? The oven roasted tomato Festival.You will see it used in everything this week, After all isn't that why you really made them Sarah? You wait, you watch, you see.You know it will be against your religion, to let a single one spoil. So join the festival,and lets sing the "praises of leftovers"
These look so yummy! I just put a tray of them in the oven..my only addition was a big handful of red pepper flakes..thanks for the wonderful ideas!
What is it about this blog site that has Gayle rummaging around her kitchen in April looking in her pantry for 2 cans of organic plum tomatoes,and me making up an excuse to run to the store at 10:30pm to pick up 2 cans of tomatoes,praying I don't run into anyone and have to explain what I'm there for.And yes in my typical fashion decided to change the the temp to 250 so when I put them in the oven at 2:00am they would be done before I left for work.I woke up to black charred bricks.I WAS SO DISSAPOINTED!!!! After all I did have great plans for the week for them. Moral of the story, some things are left better just the way they are.I just brought home flatbread from Macrina's bakery,and if only I had those tomotoes to dip them in
I,d have no regrets.
I have made these twice and love them. I am wondering if you could do a post suggesting what to do with the leftover juicy sauce from the tomato cans. Because I'm going to have a lot of it with as frequently as I plan to make these delicious tomatoes!
I just pulled these out of the oven and am having a hard time not eating the whole pan myself! A midnight snack with cream cheese and crackers. Better stop before I feel sick! These are so good! Made the tomato soup tonight with grilled cheese. Welcome-home pasta to follow. Thanks for all the ideas!
Wow - these are amazing! They are hard to leave alone, but I will save some for another time...
I just found your blog through my niece Bethany and am looking forward to trying lots of your recipes!
Funny... I was browsing through your blog ... and on the side searching for recipes on what to do with a plethora of tomatoes (inherited a harvest from a friend's garden). I've already made gazpacho... I'm looking for something different. Then I heard about slow roasted tomatoes, WHAT!! And then, almost simultaneously, I saw this post! Even though its summer I'm going to turn on that oven and let it go to town. I'm excited that these will stay good in the fridge for a bit... I also heard somewhere that they can be frozen... we'll see if they last that long. Thanks for sharing!