Sunday, April 17, 2011

The Best Thing I Ever Ate...this week

The eating around here has changed up a bit in the last week or so.  The hubs and I are on a hard core diet that lasts for 40 days.  I will share the details later, but for now my goal is to plan and prepare meals that meet our needs but that still taste delicious.  If the food ain't good, we won't be able to stick to the strict dietary guidelines. 

What I am sharing with you today is a simple method that will turn already delectable grape or cherry tomatoes into little gems of candy-like sweetness! Traditionally I would prepare this using olive oil, but in keeping with our diet I simply put the tomatoes (I used grape tomatoes this time) into a 450 degree oven totally naked, just like so...

This is a great way to use up tomatoes that may have seen better days
After about 10 minutes or so the skins really start to wrinkle and you will notice some dark spots.  I used a spatula at that point and carefully moved them around a bit, you don't want to squish them. 

See the dark spots?  That's where the sweetness is, no worries!
I let these go about another 10 -15 minutes then pulled them out.  I immediately sprinkled some sea salt on them and let them cool.  I squeezed some fresh lemon on them just before serving.  The lemon was a great balance to the sweetness of the tomatoes.  These can be eaten alone as a side,tossed into a salad, or even spread onto a sandwich.  Try these even if you think you don't love tomatoes.  The roasting brings out the natural sugars and changes the texture so much that you may find a new found appreciation for the humble tomato. I just bought some yellow cherry tomatoes that I will eat and eat while they are still fresh, but once they show signs of going bad, they too will meet the same fate as these little pretties.



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

YUM! Thank you for sharing. This looks like something that Jer and I would love during the summer months!

Carrie said...

When they are roasted like that they are stellar on a pita bread pizza with a little goat cheese and fresh basil. Yummy.