Oven-Roasted Tomatoes

You can put oven-roasted tomatoes on sandwiches, on pasta, in panini, basically any way you'd use a normal tomato, or especially a sun-dried tomato. The flavor and texture is very similar to a sun-dried tomato.

You can also puree them in a food processor with roasted garlic cloves. You'll end up with a great garlicky tomato paste. You can spread it on bread or add to any tomato based sauce or soup. You can also freeze it and use it all winter long. Just break off a chunk and add to anything. Or freeze in 1 tablespoon clumps so you'll always have it measured out.

A bunch of tomatoes, any variety
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Kosher Salt
Fresh Cracked Pepper
a bunch of garlic cloves

Preheat oven to 325° F.

Cut your tomatoes. If you're using small romas, just cut them in half. Anything larger, quarter them. Half Grape Tomatoes. Place tomatoes in a large bowl. Drizzle with olive oil (enough to coat everything) and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Lightly toss together, coating everything.

Arrange tomatoes in a single layer, skins down, on a cookie sheet lined with foil or parchment paper. Mince garlic and sprinkle over tomatoes being careful to let most of it drop directly on the tomatoes. Give it one more generous drizzle of olive oil.

Place in oven and cook for 2 1/2-3 hours, depending on the size of your tomatoes. It usually takes about 3 for romas that are halved. If you quarter them they'll get done a little faster. You'll want to just keep an eye on them after about 2 -2 1/2 hours. You'll see the juices have dried up and some of the tomatoes will start to get dark around the edges.

When they're done they'll look kind of dried up, and blackened around the edges, but still soft.