Roast them up!!

It's tomato season folks ye!! I am a huge tomato fan. There is two things that money can't buy and they are; love and home grown tomatoes (in my case they come from my local and favorite CSA farm). If you are like me and have a whole lot of tomatoes, I enthusiastically say; Roast them up people!! Tomatoes are all water so they will diminish quite a lot when you are done roasting them.

There is many reasons why you should roast your tomatoes;

• First, it's a great way to preserve them
• They are simply out of this world delicious and sweet with a nice piece of country bread and some goat cheese
• They make the best pasta dish you ever had in your life
• They make an extravagant breakfast if served with poached or fried eggs on a bed of spinach or other greens (see recipe below)
  

...and the list goes on and on... on salads, for quick anti-pastis platter, on a bruschetta with a piece of sopresseta, on a pizzas sprinkled with grated manchego and fresh basil..etc.

Here is how you do it:

Pre-heat your oven to 300F. Cut the tomatoes lengthwise in quarters and put them on a baking sheet in one layer. If you have a lot of tomatoes then use two baking sheets. Sprinkle your tomatoes with olive oil (about 2-3 tbl sp) and minced garlic. Season with salt, pepper and some herbes de provence or other herbs of your choice like basil and oregano. Bake in the oven for 2 hours or until slightly shrivelled at the edge and a bit dry. After they have cool down, transfer them to a Mason glass jar with all their juices and keep in your refrigerator.

If the skin bothers you, here is how you peel tomatoes. Boil a big pot of salted water. Using a sharp knife make a cross shape incision in the bottom of tomatoes. When water is boiling, insert 3-4 tomatoes at the time and boil for 15-20 seconds (not longer, you don't want the tomatoes to start cooking or they will be mushy). Remove them with a slotted spoon and immediately plunge them in an ice bath, just long enough so they cool down, but not too long so they absorb too much water. Now, all you have to do is peel them by pulling down the skin, starting where you did the incision.