6:24 a.m. - 2007-09-15
Easy-peasy, lemon squeezy
Cherry tomato confit

Heat your oven (the big hot thing in the kitchen!) to fahrenheit 350 degrees.

Get a baking pan with raised edges. You know, I think they are called "cookie pans " or sheets or something here. You definitely don't want anything drooling ove the edges of the pan, trust me!

Officially take 1 pint red and 1 pint yellow cherry tomatoes and spread them out over the pans's surface. Unofficially, take a melange of many different kinds of cherry tomatoes ( red, orange, yellow, those greeny pink ones...) and spread them out.

Smash 3 cloves (you so don't have to peel them!) of garlic and scatter them about over the surface, discarding obvious peels. Skins, whatever you call them. Add a few grinds of hot pepper, some sprinkles of salt and pepper and strew with crushed rosemary. Drizzle with olive oil, about 1/4 cup, the recipe said, and put into the oven. FOREVERRRRRRRR!!!!! No, not really! Bake until the tomtoes are all wrinkled and bursting. Pick out the obvious garlic chunks and then scoop up the confit into a container. It goes well with pretty much everything.

BONUS RECIPE!!!

At the same time you can also make a tomato-garlic sauce. Take the other baking pan and put on it some lovely tomatoes. I last used some plums and a small heirloom, but the heirloom was a bit awkward. Also put an entire head of garlic on the pan. Pointy part up. Fresh is the best, but be sure to pinch off all of the roots. Roast until the tomatoes are collapsing. Cool them and then when you can handle them without burning yourself, squeeze the tomatoes out of their skins and into a bowl. Mush them all up. You can use your hands if they are clean. Some people like to take off the excess water by flipping the tomato goosh around a bit in a strainer. Back in the bowl with it when you are done. Now, squeeze the garlic from the base out of the pointy part, (just like dentifrice!) into the tomatoes and mix well. I suppose that you could add herbs if you wanted, but I never do. It's just delicious!

Cavalry - Apache