Preserved Tomatoes Recipe (confit of tomatoes)

It seems like everyone has nostalgic tales about summertime tomatoes.

The stories abound of big, bursting, glowing tomatoes full of juice and flavor, capturing the magic of summer in one compact little orb. I have to admit that I just don't have those fond memories. Perhaps I was born too late and tomatoes had their flavors hybridized out by the time I was eating them. I don't know, but if one more person waxes-on about how miserable my life is because I don't know real tomatoes I will be compelled to slap them.

Maybe these people just need to complain about how bad things are in comparison to days-gone-by, to make us feel like we've missed something really special so my generation would feel empty and lost and without direction with only the internet as a feeble substitute for actual communication and Sex and the City has ended and we feel lost without Carrie and her cool and attractive friends who have amazing lives, who understood and shared our problems and failed relationships, trying to make it in a tough urban landscape, facing the daily challenge of maintaining 27-inch waistlines while eating ice cream sundaes and cupcakes from Magnolia Bakery and downing Cosmopolitans, and whose most pressing problem is which overpriced shoes to buy and showing that women don't-need-men-to-be-happy-thank-you-very-much but...well, just kidding folks maybe in the end, ultimately they do and you've wasted six years of your life watching this show only to have it end where the main character is actually a total loser with nothing more than a silly wardrobe of clothes that no one would ever actually wear on the street and a gig modeling Gap khakis.

Anyhow.

Recently the proliferation of heirloom tomatoes at greenmarkets harkens back to the days of yore, when tomatoes were beautiful and irregular and presumably so full of flavor that after one bite you could boast about how good it was for the remainder of your life and try to make everyone feel like you know something that they don't know and how much richer your life is than theirs because you've had this amazing tomato experience and they haven't.

But I've digressed again...

Nowadays the marketers and growers have gotten smart.
It's fairly easy to come across tomatoes sold 'on-the-vine' that look old-fashioned (they're the idea of good tomatoes: you really want to like them, but they don't taste all that much better) but, hmmmm, that they might be as good as those tomatoes people keep telling you you've missed out on, but when you get them home and slice them open, they taste negligibly better than any of the other tomatoes at the supermarket but cost twice as much. They just have a redder color and come with their stems attached and you feel superior at the cash register to those cheapskates who're buying those other tomatoes.

Before I digress any more, here's an excellent recipe for encouraging flavor and sweetness from any tomatoes using a technique called making a confit. The slow roasting with olive oil concentrates and sweetens flavors, making ordinary tomatoes boast-worthy.

Confit of Tomatoes

1. Buy some tomatoes, just about any variety will do. 2 pounds (1 kg) is a nice amount.

2. Wash and dry them, then slice them in half. Pour enough decent-quality olive oil in a baking dish so that it just covers the bottom of the dish, somewhere between 1/4 cup and 1/3 cup should do.

3. Sprinkle in coarse salt and freshly-ground black pepper, add a few branches of fresh thyme and/or a few sprigs of rosemary. Then line the bottom of the baking dish with the tomatoes, sliced-side down. Don't be bashful; it's okay to really pack them in.

4. Peel and slice 3 or 4 garlic cloves, slice them in half lengthwise and tuck them in the gaps between the tomatoes. Sprinkle the tomatoes with a bit more salt and a small sprinkling of sugar (less than 1 teaspoon... you're not making dessert) and add a few bay leaves.

5. Bake the tomatoes in a 350 F (180 C) oven until they are soft and cooked throughout (a paring knife should pierce them easily), which should take at least 45 minutes.

6. Once they're soft, remove them from the oven and let stand until room temperature. You can scrape the tomatoes and juices and herbs into a container and refrigerate them for up to 4 to 5 days or use them right away. They will actually improve as they sit.

Use them to toss into pasta, slightly chopped, or warm them and spoon them whole onto hot garlic toasts, perhaps with a few filets of good anchovies, and shower them with lots of fresh herbs. They're also nice served alongside a summer salad with some goat cheese, all drizzled with a bit of the tasty olive oil and juices.