Adventures

Apr 4, 2013

Project 271 & 270: When In Romas

It's so easy you'll be roasting romas all year. Best part is, you can do this all year because it's perfect for those out-of-season tomatoes. The roasting turns mediocre fruits into sweet and addictive morsels.

There are varying methods to roasting tomatoes. Experiment and find which method works for you. However, slow and low is the core philosophy. Some folks use 200 degrees, others 250 degrees. Some let the tomatoes go for up to eight hours. I'm satisfied with between 4-6. I like to remove the seeds and pulp, others don't. 

Here is what I did:

I used between 3 1/2 - 4 pounds of roma tomatoes. I cored and halved them then removed the seeds and pulp. I peeled 4-5 cloves of garlic. I tossed everything in a large bowl with about 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, coarse salt, and freshly ground back pepper. I poured the whole mix onto my half-sheet baking pan and turned all the tomatoes hollow side down. I popped these into a pre-heated 250 degree oven and walked away.

Every hour I turned the pan because our oven is hotter in the back. Here they are after about two hours.
Almost five hours later they looked great and I was satisfied. By the way, the smell in your house is amazing.You could roast these for the aromatherapeutic benefits alone. I'm not sure aromatherapeutic is a word, but it is when you roast tomoatoes. I removed them from the oven and let them cool. I ate several before I could package them. You can freeze these or you can cover with olive oil and keep in the refrigerator for about two weeks. I doubt they will last that long. We use them on toast, on pasta, in eggs, in hummus, on salad, in paella, on a fork, in our hand, on a sandwich...I could do this all day.

4 comments:

The Rowdy Chowgirl said...

Looks wonderful. I've read about roasting tomatoes, but I've never tried it. It's a little hard to tell from the pictures--would you say that the results are more like stewed tomatoes, or sun-dried, or something completely different?

feedyourself said...

Rowdy,

Yes, hard to tell from this pic. This is not the finished product. Ultimately, they are softer than sun-dried, not nearly as shriveled, but just as sweet. After about 6 hours I find them perfect. Very moist, sweet (from roasting) and savory (from the oil and garlic) and hard to resist. Could work easily like stewed tomatoes. Would be perfect as the sole tomato product in a pot of sauce for pasta (might want to pell off the skins). Try some and let me know.

Sadie said...

These were excellent. I used this recipe to make roasted tomatoes to use in the recipe "Fire Roasted Tomato and Spinach Pasta" from this site.

Cristina said...

Roasting romas sounds good to me. They wouldn't last that long for me to can them...I'd have a dozen or more uses for them asap. I can smell them already! ;)

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