Roasted Tomatoes

This past week I made the choice to purchased 20 pounds of Roma tomatoes with plans to slow roast them in the oven and pack them in 1/2 pint jars and freeze it for later use. With breakfast consumed on Saturday morning I jumped into this project.

This is a slow time consuming project but the end result is worth all the effort.

  

They all get a wash ,sliced in half, the cores trimmed and the bulk of the seeds and juicy stuff cleaned out.

 Toss the prepared tomatoes with olive oil and some freshly chopped herbs, salt & pepper (I had to divide the tomatoes into two bowls in order to have the room to toss them).

 

Once you've tossed all the tomatoes with the oil & herbs and they are evenly coated, spread them on baking sheets cut side up.

  

Then into a 400 degree oven for a long bake. 

Rotate every thirty minutes if you bake two trays at once, and they are done when the liquid that sweats off of them has cooked away.  Yes they will be flattened out lumps of yummyness.

By the time all for trays were cooked off, I removed them from the baking sheets to a air tight container and tossed them in the frig after pulling a few to add to dinner.

So what was dinner, well my cheat night roasted red pepper ravioli didn't get eaten during the week so we cooked it up, and then tossed it in Italian dressing with the roasted tomatoes skinned, chopped and mixed in. Add that to a simple salad we had a great dinner.

Today after returning from church and lunch, I peeled all the skins from the tomatoes, ran the skins though a food mill and after tossing the tomatoes, the goodies from the food mill and a bit more olive oil, and placed in jars for long term storage. After a session with the vacuum sealer, off into the freezer the go for later use!