Bunny's Roasted Tomatoes

I think it was Rhett of The Gazebo House that initially and graciously gave me this recipe. Since then I have tweaked it a fair bit so here is my version.

 

 * Start with garden fresh tomotoes. You will have a better end product if you use either Romas or what our Amish neighbors call "Canning tomatoes". I don't know which variety they are but they are very meaty and not too wet. Give them a rinse under the tap.

* Cut the tomatoes into chunks. Cut out the green core at the top. That's what you see in the bowl. Keep an eye out for little critters who love to make tomatoes a home. I found one in that whole box you see.

* Fill a cookie sheet with enough tomatoes to fill the pan in a double layer of chunks.  It will take a bit of focus to mix everything but this will shrink down to A THIRD of it's former self by the time it is done.  Preheat the oven to 425º.

Here is where you can get creative.

*  Chop three cloves of garlic and throw it in the pan.

* Coarse chop some sweet onion. These are usually labeled as such at the market, like Vidalias, Mauis or Texas sweets. I only use a 1/4 of a big sweet onion. I don't want my sauce overpowered. Add the chunks to the pan.

* Next is up to you. Sometimes I throw in a half of a chunked, peeled eggplant. You can add some fresh basil slivers, or capers, or even jalapenos. Use what is handy. This sauce can't miss. Trust me on this.

* Now I sprinkle the top with a full teaspoon of coarse ground black pepper and a heaping teaspoon of Kosher salt. After that I pour over about a half cup of extra virgin olive oil, not that light flavorless stuff. Save that for frying eggs. I try to use the darkest oils I can find. I love Berio and it's the best I can get my hands on up here.

* With your impeccably scrubbed hands toss the whole magilla together well so all is coated with oil and spice. Put it in the hot oven. After twenty minutes take it out and give it a toss. You will see lots of juice coming out. You will cook this approximately an hour taking the pan out every twenty or so minutes to turn it around with a egg turner/spatula. See it all getting runny and shrinking down?

* As the hour nears it's end watch it closely. The tomatoes are done when you have brown carmelization in the corners of the cookie pan, just like in the picture, not a minute more or less. When you see this take the pan out and put on some sort of rack to cool. Take your spatula/egg turner and push the wet tomatoes into those carmelized  corners and edges and  let them sit for about fifteen minutes or so. This softens up the brown bits and makes them easier to scrape up. Don't even think about not mixing in the carmelized edges! They hold a very very intense tomato flavor. When cool get your spatula our again and scrape all that Brown flecked, garlic strewn, sweet onion scented goodness into a gallon ziploc. One cookie sheet does one gallon bag of tomatoes. I usually do these all day and celebrate with a nice pasta dinner the same night so we can try out our hard work. It's fabulous with shrimp!  The other bags go into the deep freeze to bring out their rosy wonder around the middle of January.Stack them on a cookie sheet to freeze so they get like boards you can stack once frozen.  I said it before but DH and I both felt like crying when the last bag was gone.  I hope you try this and let me know how it works out. The most important part is cooking it to that stick to the pan carmelization part, usually about an hour. Hope you like!


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The local tribe of 35 wild turkeys has decided to take up residence on our property. They sleep in an old white pine at night and roam around eating crickets all day. Our Buff Orpington chickens weave in and out of the tribe like one big happy family. It is really funny to see. No one is threatened. The really funny thing however is to see all the turkeys jump out of the pine tree in the morning. They don't fly out. They just jump down to the ground and it is quite a spectacle to behold.........Bunny