Rushing The Season

Every year, I wait with bated breath for local, organic, ripe tomatoes - and every year, I cave in sometime in June and buy tomatoes from afar. A girl can wait only so long for really good tomatoes! And this year was no different.


I had read Greg's blog when he posted about a prize-winning burger he had concocted with roasted, garlicky tomatoes on top. I've been dreaming about those tomatoes ever since, so my resistance was down when I strolled past the display of tomatoes from Mexico. I couldn't resist.  I didn't resist.


When I asked, Greg kindly told me how to roast his kind of tomatoes. He used cherry tomatoes and mine were slightly larger, but still not a big variety. I sliced mine about as thick as half a cherry tomato (perhaps 1/2") and laid them in a shallow baking dish. Sliced three cloves of garlic (I'm sure you can vary this depending on your love, or not, of garlic). Dribbled nice olive oil all over them. I was about to slide them into a 275 degree oven as Greg recommended when I remembered that my thyme was about to flower and it would be good to use some of those leaves. So I stepped outside, cut a bunch of little branches and stripped the leaves right into the dish. That may have been gilding the lily, but I do love thyme.


It went into the oven for about 45 minutes. The mingled scents of rich tomato, sweetly roasted garlic and thyme rushed out of the oven when I opened it. The garlic that was in the olive oil on the bottom was golden brown. The tomatoes were all relaxed and comfy in their oil bath and the thyme had released its essence.


After letting it cool, I put it all in a lidded jar in the fridge to await that burger - or perhaps a sandwich. I have all kinds of ideas now that I have rushed the season yet again.