Heirloom Tomatoes

We have, over the last couple weeks, gotten some interesting and beautiful heirloom tomatoes in our share.  I have been contemplating what to do with them since I got the first batch, but really needed to use them before they started going bad.  Somewhere in my searching, I saw an article about roasting tomatoes.  In the past, I have always treated tomatoes similar to other vegetables at 400F.  This article, however, suggested that it might be better to roast them at 250F for about 7 hours.  I am not the type to leave my gas oven running (even at 250F) when I am not here, so I decided to roast them while I slept.  From these roasted tomatoes, I made marinara sauce, which has a very unique flavor.

Slow-roasted Heirloom Tomato Sauce

• 5 small to large heirloom tomatoes*
• Olive oil
• Italian herbs
• 1 28-oz can crushed tomatoes
• 1 large clove garlic*
• 3 cups water 

Preheat oven to 250F.  Cut tomatoes in half (quarters if very large) and place on a cookie sheet covered with foil. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with Italian herbs.  

Roast in slow oven for about 7 hours.

Once roasted, place tomatoes into blender along with about half of the crushed tomatoes and garlic.  Puree (adding more crushed tomatoes if necessary. Pour puree into large Dutch oven along with remaining crushed tomatoes and water.  Heat to boil and then simmer for about 10 minutes or until garlic is cooked.

Note: one of the things about cooking on the fly is that you learn lessons as you go.  Since a couple of my tomatoes were quite huge (5" diameter), I decided to cut the tomatoes into wedges.  I found out this morning that wasn't necessarily the best idea.  Some of the wedges were charred almost all the way through.  So, make sure your tomato pieces are fairly large and meaty if you are going to slow roast.  Also, if I had been thinking last night (this is what happens when you start cooking at midnight!), I would have taken 3-4 cloves of the garlic and added them to the tray.  Roasted garlic would have added a sweetness to the sauce.  Instead, I had to cook the sauce this morning to cook the garlic.  I will say, though, that the combination of heirloom tomatoes has given the sauce a unique flavor that will probably come out different every time I make this because of the combination of heirloom tomatoes.  I hope we get more in the next couple weeks!

*CSA ingredients