Roasted Green Tomatoes

I still had a few green tomatoes left from those that my sister gave me almost two weeks ago... meaning I had to get cooking them!  I made Stewed Green Tomatoes last week and wanted to try something different this time around.  I do love experimenting. :-)  Part of me was tempted to go ahead and fry 'em up because I knew that would be delicious, but I persuaded myself to go the healthy route because I knew that could be delicious too.

I've made roasted regular (ripe) tomatoes many times and figured that the green ones could be roasted too.  In fact, I had a couple red tomatoes lying around today so I went ahead and added them in with my green ones.

Roasted tomatoes make an excellent side dish (tonight mine paired with leftover chicken), but can also be used as a bruschetta topping on some lightly toasted baguette.  And sprinkled with goat cheese or parm... yum!

What you need:

Green tomatoes (or use some standard ripe ones, same method works)

Olive oil 

Peeled Garlic Cloves

Salt and Pepper

Heat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.  Or higher and reduce cooking time... I've actually done this at all different temperatures, going as low as 225 and as high as 425.  If you plan ahead and do the 225, that's actually probably ideal, but it takes awhile (maybe 4 hours or more?).  I think I did them properly once, but the rest of the time I haven't started early enough.  I most often start around 325 and often end up increasing the temperature near the end when I run out of time or get impatient.  

Lightly spray or drizzle oil olive on a baking sheet or shallow glass baking dish. Slice tomatoes into 3/4 inch thick slices.  Lay out on baking sheet.  Sprinkle garlic cloves around tomatoes.  Drizzle lightly with olive oil or spray with olive oil (honestly, more is tastier, but I try to keep this to a minimum to keep the dish on the light side).  Sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Freshly ground is tastiest. 

Roast for about 2 1/2 hours.  If you run out of time, increase the temperature a bit.  It won't hurt anything.  Mine actually could have gone a little longer this time, but they were still plenty good after two hours, but that included turning up the temperature to 400 for the last half hour. The tomatoes should get slightly caramelized and shrunken.  If you are patient and leave them longer, they will get more caramelized and the flavor becomes sweeter and richer.  So try to be patient if you have the time. :-)

You can also add chopped onion before roasting.  It gets nice and crispy on top of the tomatoes.  Or drizzle with a balsamic reduction after roasting.  I've also added slabs of fresh mozzarella right after it comes out of the oven and sprinkled with fresh basil leaves.

Enjoy!