On your blog, you roasted plum tomatoes... but I'm wondering if
roasting will work with regular round tomatoes (early girl, etc from
the farmer's market)? Would I just cut them in half or should they be
thinner slices? I may end up making a ratatouille, but I'm not sure
at this point exactly what I want to do. I have a couple of eggplants
and I have a pasta dish in mind, so I'll need to preserve these
tomatoes until I figure out what I want to do with them.

--

Carrot cake counts as a serving of vegetables.

sf wrote:

> On your blog, you roasted plum tomatoes... but I'm wondering if
> roasting will work with regular round tomatoes (early girl, etc from
> the farmer's market)? Would I just cut them in half or should they be
> thinner slices? I may end up making a ratatouille, but I'm not sure
> at this point exactly what I want to do. I have a couple of eggplants
> and I have a pasta dish in mind, so I'll need to preserve these
> tomatoes until I figure out what I want to do with them.

Not Giusi, but I can tell you that yes, it is definitely possible to roast
"regular round" tomatoes. But the technique for doing so depends on what you
want out of the process. The _Cafe Beaujolais_ cookbook gives recipes both
for slow-roasted tomatoes (which are very soft) and oven-dried tomatoes
(which are slightly dry and leathery). Both methods result in great tomato
flavor, but are very different. In both cases, the tomatoes are cut in half
and put into the oven on racks. IIRC the main differences between the two
recipes were the oven temperature and what you put on top of the tomatoes.

I don't have that book with me, but I know Christine has it; maybe she can
fill in the details.

Bob

sf wrote:

> On your blog, you roasted plum tomatoes... but I'm wondering if
> roasting will work with regular round tomatoes (early girl, etc from
> the farmer's market)? Would I just cut them in half or should they be
> thinner slices? I may end up making a ratatouille, but I'm not sure
> at this point exactly what I want to do. I have a couple of eggplants
> and I have a pasta dish in mind, so I'll need to preserve these
> tomatoes until I figure out what I want to do with them.

Not Giusi, but I can tell you that yes, it is definitely possible to roast
"regular round" tomatoes. But the technique for doing so depends on what you
want out of the process. The _Cafe Beaujolais_ cookbook gives recipes both
for slow-roasted tomatoes (which are very soft) and oven-dried tomatoes
(which are slightly dry and leathery). Both methods result in great tomato
flavor, but are very different. In both cases, the tomatoes are cut in half
and put into the oven on racks. IIRC the main differences between the two
recipes were the oven temperature and what you put on top of the tomatoes.

I don't have that book with me, but I know Christine has it; maybe she can
fill in the details.

Bob

"sf" > ha scritto nel messaggio
>
> On your blog, you roasted plum tomatoes... but I'm wondering if> roasting
> will work with regular round tomatoes (early girl, etc from> the farmer's
> market)? Would I just cut them in half or should they be> thinner slices?
> I may end up making a ratatouille, but I'm not sure> at this point exactly
> what I want to do. I have a couple of eggplants
> and I have a pasta dish in mind, so I'll need to preserve these> tomatoes
> until I figure out what I want to do with them.

You can try, but the juicier they are the less successful they are. You
really cannot sun dry those juicy ones in any natural way.
Why not try some of them in the tomato cream sauce I posted here today? The
juicier ones work better with that recipe. Any of them are fine frozen once
they're cooked.
I made ratatouille last week and enjoyed two little bowls of it right away
and then didn't want any more at all. I froze that too. I am hopeless with
leftovers.

On Mon, 16 Aug 2010 03:42:07 -0700, "Bob Terwilliger"
> wrote:

> But the technique for doing so depends on what you
> want out of the process. The _Cafe Beaujolais_ cookbook gives recipes both
> for slow-roasted tomatoes (which are very soft) and oven-dried tomatoes
> (which are slightly dry and leathery).

I was talking about roasting them, not drying them out. I plan to
splash EVOO over and maybe give them a light sprinkle of coarse salt.

--

Carrot cake counts as a serving of vegetables.

On Mon, 16 Aug 2010 13:07:34 +0200, "Giusi" >
wrote:

> You can try, but the juicier they are the less successful they are. You
> really cannot sun dry those juicy ones in any natural way.

I wasn't planning on sun drying. Haven't seen any sun in days anyway,
this is August!

> Why not try some of them in the tomato cream sauce I posted here today? The
> juicier ones work better with that recipe. Any of them are fine frozen once
> they're cooked.

I just saw that, thanks. Food for thought. I even have fresh basil
growing in a pot sitting next to the kitchen sink.

> I made ratatouille last week and enjoyed two little bowls of it right away
> and then didn't want any more at all. I froze that too. I am hopeless with
> leftovers.

Ratatouille is what I really want. I got used to not making enough
dinner to have leftovers; but now that hubby is retired, I plan them
because he eats it for lunch the following day.

--

Carrot cake counts as a serving of vegetables.

sf wrote:

>> But the technique for doing so depends on what you
>> want out of the process. The _Cafe Beaujolais_ cookbook gives recipes
>> both
>> for slow-roasted tomatoes (which are very soft) and oven-dried tomatoes
>> (which are slightly dry and leathery).
>
> I was talking about roasting them, not drying them out. I plan to
> splash EVOO over and maybe give them a light sprinkle of coarse salt.

How firm do you want them to be at the end of cooking? I frequently half-dry
tomatoes because the flavor gets nicely concentrated but the tomatoes are
still firm enough to use in salads or sandwiches. I am still hoping that
Christine chimes in, because I don't remember the exact details for the
cooking. I thought the halved tomatoes got some kind of pesto put on top of
them before being cooked in *one* of the recipes, but I don't remember which
one.

Bob

On Mon, 16 Aug 2010 15:07:10 -0700, "Bob Terwilliger"
> wrote:

> sf wrote:
>
> >> But the technique for doing so depends on what you
> >> want out of the process. The _Cafe Beaujolais_ cookbook gives recipes
> >> both
> >> for slow-roasted tomatoes (which are very soft) and oven-dried tomatoes
> >> (which are slightly dry and leathery).
> >
> > I was talking about roasting them, not drying them out. I plan to
> > splash EVOO over and maybe give them a light sprinkle of coarse salt.
>
> How firm do you want them to be at the end of cooking? I frequently half-dry
> tomatoes because the flavor gets nicely concentrated but the tomatoes are
> still firm enough to use in salads or sandwiches. I am still hoping that
> Christine chimes in, because I don't remember the exact details for the
> cooking. I thought the halved tomatoes got some kind of pesto put on top of
> them before being cooked in *one* of the recipes, but I don't remember which
> one.
>

Half firm sounds right. I just wanted to know if the flavor of a
juicy tomato benefits as much as the flavor of a firmer one. I'm
thinking slices no thinner than half an inch and no thicker than an
inch. I don't want a "recipe" per se and definitely no pesto included
because I want to keep my options of what to do with them (like
ratatouille) open.

--

Carrot cake counts as a serving of vegetables.