Cooking for Pleasure

I am.

For some reason I have never been able to eat raw tomatoes. I have tried them every way there is but for some reason I just cannot swallow them Even the smell makes me shudder.

But - cooked tomatoes I love and I find I need a serious tomato fix at least once a week.

I remember one day many years ago I went to lunch at a friends place who had gone to a lot of trouble to get just the right ripe plump organic tomatoes, the absolute freshest basil and had spent a fortune on the very best bocconcinni and the best Virgin olive oil.

Err um how does one politely ask your best friend who has gone to a lot of trouble to make this simple lunch spectacular if she would mind if I put my bowl of tomatoes and bocconcini in the microwave !!!!!!!!!!!

There was a stunned silence for a minute and then the memory kicked in. She had completely forgotten that I didn’t eat raw tomato.

So into a saucepan went this beautiful salad and we cooked it just long enough to cook the tomato and the cheese remained whole but soft.  The end result was the best warm salad of wonderful tomatoes that I slurped up all the juice with a lovely crusty french bread.

However for a person who doesn’t eat raw tomatoes it does create a challenge.  How many salads include raw tomato??

Here is a quick and easy way to slow roast some cherry tomatoes that you can use for salads, with cheese or just about anything where raw tomato would normally be used.

1 punnet  cherry tomatoes

Olive oil

Balsamic vinegar

Salt and ground black pepper.

Place the tomatoes on a ceramic or glass baking dish. Do not use a metal baking dish as the acid in the tomatoes does not mix well with the metal.

Lightly sprinkle some olive oil and a few splashes of balsamic vinegar. Just enough for a very light coating of oil and enouggh balsamic to add a hint of the flavour of the balsamic. Too much and you will stew the cherry tomatoes. Add some salt and pepper to taste.

Bake in a slow oven (around 180-200 degrees F) for around 1 hour or until the tomatoes are just wilted and the skins wrinkled but not blackened.  The idea is to cook them just enough to remove the raw tomato taste but the tomatoes retain their shape. You can use the Italian Roma tpe tomatoes but these need to be cooked for longer.

These can be used in salads, salsas and are wonderful served with some brie or any soft cheese as an appetizer.

Next post I will add some salsa ideas that don’t contain tomatoes.

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