These tomatoes were gorgeous. Like, tomato-hall-of-fame quality tomatoes. But what was I going to do with a garden's worth of tomatoes? It's just me and Nick here, and although we can put away more food than you might expect, this was a lot of tomatoes. It was hard to get the basket up the stairs.
What ensued was several days - a week, probably - of tomato-based meals and the production of tomato products. I became a veritable tomato-using factory. First came a spicy tomato-chicken soup, sort of a hybrid between tortilla soup and chili. It was inspired by the ingredients that just happened to be in my kitchen which, besides tomatoes, included chicken, frozen corn, onions, chicken, blue corn tortilla chips and a lot of chili powder. Combining all of the above in my deep cast iron pan (also from grammie) yielded a tasty, if somewhat too spicy, soupy summery stew.
While the soup was delicious, it had hardly made a dent in the tomato mountain. So I made some bruschetta, which was delicious and easy and, once again, inspired by the contents of my kitchen - and fire escape. I just diced a bunch of the tomatoes and mixed in some olive oil, fresh basil, dried oregano and salt and pepper, then heaped a generous amount of that onto little pieces of toast brushed with olive oil and topped with grated Parmesan. (I might have added a little onion or garlic too, I can't quite remember.)
The bruschetta was delicious but there were still many, many tomatoes left. A project of a larger scale was called for. The obvious answer was tomato sauce.
I make a lot of tomato sauce. It's easy (although it tends to leave my stove and the side of my fridge covered in tomato splatter) and Nick eats it practically by the gallon. I've never used a recipe, I just do what I've always watched my parents do at home (tomato sauce is one of the very few things my dad can cook.) But, inspired by the mountain of fresh tomatoes, I decided to try something different. And the result is what I now call "the best roasted tomato sauce ever."
In all honesty, I have minimal experience with roasted tomato sauces. In fact, this is the first I've ever made. Nevertheless, I've dubbed it the best ever simply because I can't imagine anything ever tasting better. Somewhat ironic, really, since I made it up on the spot based, yet again, on what was in my kitchen. Come to think of it, the ingredients are almost identical to those in the bruschetta. But in a hot oven, doused in olive oil, their flavors combine and intensify, creating the most flavorful tomato sauce I think I've ever had. Amazing, from such a few simple ingredients. I chalk it up to the Cabot Farm tomatoes.
All I did was slice the tomatoes into nice big chunks - quarters or sixths - from top to bottom. Then I wedged them all into a baking dish like New Yorkers on the subway at rush hour. I threw in a few whole cloves of lightly crushed peeled garlic and a bunch of basil leaves from the fire escape. Then I added a generous amount of dried oregano, some salt and pepper and maybe a dash of onion or garlic powder. Finally, and I think this is the really, really delicious part, I coat everything with about a third an inch of olive oil. I toss them to coat everything in oil, then stick them in the oven around 350º for about half an hour, or until the tomatoes are mushy and surrounded by lots of fragrant juice. Then I like to mush them with a metal spatula and stick them back in the oven for a bit. That's it! It's delicious on anything and makes the kitchen smell like an Italian restaurant. And it's a great way to use up a lot of extra tomatoes!
