Concentrated

The recipe:

Take cheap tomatoes.  Out-of-season, on-sale-at-Aldi-for-.99-a-pack tomatoes that have no taste of their own.

Toss with, at the very least, olive oil, salt and pepper, and then whatever else you like.   I added balsamic vinegar, hot red pepper flakes and Herbes de Provence.  You might want to add garlic, but I use so much garlic anyway  – including roasted garlic – that I thought I could use a break from it here.

Roast at around 350 or lower for at least three hours. Any less, and they still taste tomatoe-y (which is not a bad thing, but not what you’re going for.) Roast until they start to blacken – you could probably go further than I did here, but I had to bake some pretzels to take to the Cub Scout banquet.

The taste is lovely – not too far off from sun-dried tomatoes.  I guess you could use them in a pasta, but usually just end up eating them as they are, standing in my kitchen, looking out the window at whatever’s there – last week, it was flocks of birds perched on every branch of every tree, making a racket, and today it’s the beginnings of real springtime on those same branches..

I’m telling you – roasting vegetables might just change your life…it’s the kind of thing you can do so easily, that you don’t have to watch, and that you can store for later when you don’t have time – but you don’t have to skimp on taste because your deep flavors are already there, ready and waiting for you.