Roasted Tomatoes

Last weekend Stephen and I stopped at a small farm in Coopersburg, Pennsylvania, and bought a couple of baskets of organic beefsteak tomatoes. They were by far the best tomatoes we had all season. We spent the last week eating tomatoes at every meal—tomato and mozzarella salads, tomato sandwiches, and sautèed tomatoes with onions, peppers and zucchini in scrambled eggs for dinner. I made a very quick tomato sauce and then some cheddar and tomato omelets for breakfast. We ate a lot of tomatoes but still had some left, and they weren't going to last if we didn't eat them soon. So I decided to roast them.

Roasted tomatoes are delicious; as they cook they dehydrate and get kind of chewy and intensely tomato flavored. I like them squished onto a slice of toasted baguette or made into tomato sauce or tomato vinaigrette; you can also add them to warm bean salads or grain pilafs or use them as hors d'oeuvres. The only downside to roasting tomatoes is that they take awhile to prepare (they are a great Sunday project), but they are absolutely worth the effort.

To roast them, start with fully ripe tomatoes. Cut them in half (along the equator if they are beefsteak or lengthwise if they are plum.) Place them on a parchment lined cookie sheet cut side down and sprinkle them with olive oil, fresh thyme leaves, sliced garlic and a small amount of salt and pepper. Bake them in a 250 F oven for four to eight hours, depending on the size of the tomato and how dehydrated you want them to be. Allow them to cool and store them in the fridge for a week, or freeze and use them all winter long.