How To Turn A Cute Young Tomato Into A Shriveled Old Crone

You need to make a choice.
Someone offers you this:

and this:

Which one do you eat?
Well if you chose #1 you'd be right.
But if you chose #2, you would also be right.
Because they are the same tomato slice!

As I have said before, we brought home jillions
of lovely big ripe tomatoes from a farm stand on Long Island.

They have been put to good use in sandwiches, salads, and fresh pasta sauce but to preserve their tomato-y goodness without having to actually do any work, I decided to dry some of them.

Like sun-dried tomatoes, only in the oven and not in the sun. I can't imagine putting my tomatoes out in the sun to dry. At least I know my oven will work, and there are no bugs or chipmunks in it.

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I washed up some of the Big Berthas among the tomatoes,

cut them in thick slices, and put them on a non-stick cookie sheet.

(I have read that plum and cherry tomatoes work best,
but I didn't have any of those!)

A quick light sprinkle of Kosher salt, and into the oven at 225-degrees:

And they baked:

And baked

And baked:

And baked:

And finally after about 8 hours, and with my poking at them several dozen times and switching the oven temp to 200 and then back to 225, they came out of their incubator, and here's what I had:

Okay, so they don't look like much.

Actually they look pretty darned ugly, like tomatoes only a mother could love.

But -- whoa baby! -- you have to try these.

They have concentrated, intense sweet tomato flavor. Not as dessicated as commercial sundried, so therefore not as tough. I was going to freeze them for winter use, but I know we'll use them up before then, so right now they're just in plastic in the fridge.

I will roast some more, because I still have this:

But meanwhile, fresh raw tomatoes make great pasta sauces, and it only takes minutes, and no recipe. Because with ingredients as good as these, no matter what you do it tastes good.

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Start with some onions and fresh garlic, getting cozy with some hot olive oil in a heavy pan:

Cut up some fresh, raw tomatoes -- and I use the skin and seeds, it's just for family, and there's lots of good vitamins and good-for-you things I can't pronounce in all that stuff that real cooks peel off or throw away. Waste not.

Put the tomato chunks in with the onions and garlic, and let them get cozy, too:

If things look a little blurry, it's only because

the camera lens gets foggy from steam!

After just a few minutes, the stuff in the pan looks like this:

Which is excellent, just as it is, but last night we had two leftover grilled hamburger patties, so I chopped them up and added them, and then it looked like this:

Dinner's ready! A little grilled zucchini, a glass of
whatever wine is open, and we're good to go.

Thanks to Michael at Designs by Gollum for hosting Foodie Friday,
one of the most popular and most fun blog parties!

Who doesn't like reading and writing about, and taking pictures of great food?

Click on the icon, or on any highlighted word, to visit Foodie Friday and get your Ummmmm on! -- Cass