Meatless Monday: Oven-Roasted Tomatoes

This entry was posted on Nov 23, 2015 by Charlotte Bell.
meatless monday

Ready for Roasting

Meatless Monday: Oven-Roasted Tomatoes

Last week I wrote about ways to use up your green tomatoes, including seasonal favorites such as fried green tomatoes. I also included instructions for ripening tomatoes indoors in paper bags. This week, I had a sufficient number of paper-bag-ripened tomatoes that I needed to use them or lose them.

One of my favorite preparations is to slow roast my indoor-ripened tomatoes in the oven. Roasting concentrates the flavor making even your palest, least flavorful raw tomatoes into a rather intense condiment.

There are lots of ways to use roasted tomatoes. I like to cook them in a saucepan with some unroasted tomatoes, onions and herbs to make a flavorful sauce. I also like to freeze 1-cup servings of roasted tomatoes in plastic bags to add to soups and stews throughout the winter.

One warning: Slow roasting tomatoes will fill your house with such a luscious, savory aroma that you’ll be hungry all day.

How to Roast Tomatoes:

4-6 pounds fresh tomatoes

6 or more whole cloves garlic

olive oil

sprigs of thyme

salt and freshly ground pepper

  • • Preheat oven to 350°.
  • • Line a 12 x 17 cookie sheet or 9 x 13 baking pan (or both if needed) with parchment paper.
  • • Cut tomatoes in half lengthwise. There’s no need to remove the stem end unless it’s especially large and woody.
  • • Place tomatoes, cut sides up, on your cookie sheet. You can place them very close together if need be.
  • • Tuck whole cloves of garlic in between the tomatoes.
  • • Drizzle tomatoes with a little olive oil
  • • Dust with salt and a little pepper
  • • Place thyme sprigs on top

Bake for 2-3 hours, until collapsed.

About Charlotte Bell
Charlotte Bell discovered yoga in 1982 and began teaching in 1986. Charlotte is the author of Mindful Yoga, Mindful Life: A Guide for Everyday Practice and Yoga for Meditators, both published by Rodmell Press. Her third book is titled Hip-Healthy Asana: The Yoga Practitioner’s Guide to Protecting the Hips and Avoiding SI Joint Pain (Shambhala Publications). She writes a monthly column for CATALYST Magazine and serves as editor for Yoga U Online. Charlotte is a founding board member for GreenTREE Yoga, a non-profit that brings yoga to underserved populations. A lifelong musician, Charlotte plays oboe and English horn in the Salt Lake Symphony and folk sextet Red Rock Rondo, whose DVD won two Emmy awards in 2010.

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