There's two things I love about summer: (1) people cruising around, windows down, blasting their own personal anthems and (2) tomatoes. As soon as the temperature rises, I crave loud rap music and juicy tomatoes.
So, in the summer months, I often play Lil Wayne and make slow roasted tomatoes – which, if you haven't had of them before, are essentially a tiny little bite of heaven. Seriously. And super easy to make. You take roma tomatoes, toss them in olive oil, season and then bake them for hours and hours and hours. (Air conditioning is obviously a pre-requisite for this endeavor.)
The tomatoes come out bursting with flavour, and are the perfect addition to salads, pastas and sandwiches. You could serve them with a nice triple cream brie and a crusty baguette for a light snack (a low cal treat, ha!), or else plop them on a homemade pizza. Or you could just eat them standing over the stove – as I tend to do.
Here's the recipe, from Molly Wizenberg's wonderful food memoir, A Homemade Life.
Slow Roasted Tomatoes (ala Weezy Baby)
20 ripe tomatoes, preferably roma
1 tablespoon of olive oil
a pinch of sea salt
a pinch of ground coriander
Preheat the oven to 200F.
1. Wash the tomatoes, cut off the stem end, and halve them lengthwise.
2. Pour olive oil into a small bowl over tomatoes, and toss with your hands.
3. Place them, skin side down, on a large baking sheet. Sprinkle with sea salt and ground coriander – about a pinch of each for every four to six tomato halves.
4. Bake the tomatoes until they shrink to about 1/3 of their original size but are still soft and juicy, 4 to 6 hours. (I usually let mine go for the maximum time.) Remove the baking sheet from the oven, and allow the tomatoes to cool to room temperature. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.
