Tomato Overload? Put Your Oven to the Rescue!

If you have been busy canning, freezing, and making salsa and sauces of your bountiful tomato harvest, you might be sick of tomatoes. (I was actually glad that my vines froze and I had the excuse to not process any more tomatoes.) Thanks to my neighbor, though, I'm now wishing I had every one of those green tomatoes to ripen in my basement.

D.P. shared something new she is doing -- roasting tomatoes in the oven. So, I tried a couple of pans. Oh, the taste! It's more than just delicious. It's heaven! I think the taste is far better than sun-dried tomatoes. Her recipe:

Mix together in a bowl:

• 12 smaller tomatoes or equivalent (she used anything ripe in her garden), cut in half
• 3 garlic cloves, minced finely
• 1 Tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt (or salt of choice)
  

Lay tomatoes on parchment (sprayed with baking spray) in a baking pan or bun pan (or just spray the pan lightly with baking spray and put the tomatoes right on the pan). Bake at 250 degrees F or 3-4 hours, checking for doneness -- they won't all be done at once. You don't want the tomatoes completely dry, but will remove them before that (they will stick to the parchment if allowed to completely dry). Cool and put in freezer bags and freeze. Eat plain, with bread and olive oil, or on pizza or pasta.

I didn't have time to do my first batch right away, so I mixed everything and left the tomatoes to marinate overnight in a plastic zip bag, and I think the flavor that way was even better than when the tomatoes were roasted right away. My family loved them so much that with two trays of tomatoes, there were only a handful left to pop in the freezer.

If you're big on preserving enzymes, you can can get a similar flavor by mixing all the ingredients, draining, and dehydrating.

I can't fathom how I could have been missing something as delicious as roasted tomatoes, and from now on, this will be one of my first choices for ripe tomatoes. Thanks, DP for sharing your great recipe!