The Produce Department: Roasted Grape Tomatoes

Yeah, we know: we just posted about roasted vegetables. But the fact is, there’s probably no better way to draw flavor out of a vegetable than to roast it. The process concentrates the flesh and caramelizes the sugars, leaving you with something much richer than you started with.

During the cooler months, when we’re craving tomatoes, we roast cherry or grape tomatoes. (Now widely available, the grape looks like a miniature Roma and is sweeter than the cherry variety.) They can be expensive at the supermarket, but Costco sells two-pound boxes for $4.99, and two pounds is just about what we need for most dishes.

Roasting the tomatoes couldn’t be simpler:

1. Drizzle olive oil on a baking sheet.  Roll the tomatoes around in it until they’re coated.

2. Sprinkle the tomatoes with a teaspoon of dried herbs of your choice—herbs de Provence are good; so’s thyme—and salt and pepper. Roll them around again.

3. Roast at 400 degrees for about half an hour, shaking the pan occasionally. When the tomatoes are done, they’ve turned soft and juicy and developed a few brown spots.

They work well either as a side dish or as part of  a larger dish. Last night, as an experiment, we slightly mashed them when they came out of the oven, then mixed them with a pound of linguine, a few tablespoons of olive oil, half a cup of goat cheese, and a few tablespoons of parmesan. The result was delicious, though some shredded basil would have made it even better . . .