What To Do With All Those Cherry Tomatoes? Roast Em!

A gardener I am not. We have two small container gardens off our deck in our backyard, and while I’m eager and excited in the late spring when we plant, by August I get frustrated with weeding (so I don’t) and then the novelty wears off. As this is our third summer with a garden, we’re learning a thing or two about what seems to work in that particular area and what doesn’t.

Our peas only yielded one plant and about a dozen peas, and we didn’t plant any peppers (I didn’t find the jalapenos hot at all last year) or lettuce. Instead, I planted a ton of cherry tomato plants along with some dill, zuchinni and pumpkin. Now, the cherry tomatoes are abundant and we weren’t keeping up since only 3/5 of us like them in salads. So, I took to the net to find out what I could do with them and found tons of people suggesting roasting!

Now I know why.

Roasting cherry tomatoes creates a delicious, succulent topping for grilled chicken, wraps or eggs. It also creates the base for delicious spaghetti sauce or soup later in the fall and winter if you pop them into freezer bags. I am super excited about my harvest now and can’t wait to make those dishes this fall using tomatoes we grew ourselves (yes, like an urban pioneer I am!)

Here’s the basic how-to:

Preheat your oven to 300 degrees. Cut your cherry tomatoes in half and add to a large salad bowl. Add 2 garlic cloves to the bowl and toss with olive oil, salt and pepper.

2. Spread the mixture on a large baking sheet and pop in your pre-heated oven for about 1 hour. Enjoy the amazing smell emitting and filling your kitchen and pat yourself on the back for being awesome and domestic and stuff.

Remove from the oven and let sit to cool. Then, decide what you want to do with them – scoop them up and eat them right then and there unabashedly, or divide into zip loc bags to freeze. Two pans gave me two medium freezer bags of tomatoes to freeze plus a little container for topping my grilled chicken this week.

Now, I’m keeping an eye on the remaining tomatoes in my garden, still green and growing. I’m eager to pick them and make more freezer bags for sauce and soup this winter. They’re so delicious – why didn’t I think of this sooner?

In fact, if you don’t have a garden and find cherry tomatoes (or grape, or roma even) on sale, I’d suggest doing this for winter recipes as well. After all, we know how expensive produce gets at that point, especially here in Canada. Happy roasting!