I readily admit, I’m avoiding going into the gym and getting on the treadmill for my daily 30 minutes, but honestly this is worth it! Last night was “Pasta Friday” in our house, and my husband was pretty sick of the soups I’d been feeding him because of his wonky stomach (antibiotics). He wanted “real food” and it doesn’t get any “realer” than pasta with tomato sauce and sausages!
I remembered that years ago, I found a recipe in Wall Street Journal, of all places, for tomato confit. I didn’t look for the recipe last night. I just did what I remembered. Somewhere I’d read that any tomato will do when you’re slow roasting it, and I had two bunches of organic tomatoes that really didn’t have anything to recommend them for just eating.
Tomatoes after roasting, before removing skins look pretty sad. Don’t let that deter you!
I made the confit and threw a sausage into the pan with the tomatoes, garlic and a little of the parsley used for cooking the tomatoes, along with some chicken stock. That was the sauce for the spaghetti. It was so good, we both forgot to put on the parmesan cheese when we ate our second helping!!
Tomato Confit
Ingredients
- 10 medium tomatoes
- Olive oil spray
- 5 cloves garlic cut in half
- Parsley and basil or other leafy herbs
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Line a baking sheet with tin foil and spray liberally with olive oil.
- Spread out a bed of leafy herbs (with stems is ok) onto the baking sheet. Scatter garlic cloves on herbs.
- Cut tomatoes in half and cut of stem end of tomato. Place tomatoes cut side down on herbs and garlic.
- Put pan in oven and roast tomatoes for an hour or more. You want the skins to pull away from the flesh of the tomato and the flesh to be cooked through.
- Remove from oven and allow to cool. Remove skins from tomatoes and reserve flesh and garlic in small bowl, with a little of the herb leaves. Put all in a small food processor and pulse several times. There should be some texture to the tomatoes and small pieces of garlic should be visible.
- Salt and pepper to taste. A sprinkle of red pepper flakes is good but optional.