Screwing Up Roasted Tomatoes - Yes It's Possible

Roasted tomatoes are the easiest thing in the world to make - Probably as easy as toasting bread. So leave it to me to screw them up. This post should make anyone who has failed miserably in the kitchen feel a lot better about themselves.

Of course, I was able to redeem myself by making some wonderful roasted tomatoes the next day. More on that later.

First my lousy roasted tomatoes. To make roasted tomatoes, all you need to do is cut up some tomatoes, toss them in olive oil, salt and pepper and bake them at a low temperature for several hours. So where did I go wrong? Well after the tomatoes were in the oven for about 2 1/2 hours I decided to pull them out. Sure they were still a little juicy and red, but I thought they would be just fine.

I was wrong. Instead of tasting like a rich, concentrated sun dried tomatoes, they tasted like... well, cooked tomatoes that had been tossed in olive oil, salt, and pepper.

That could have been the end of it. But, nooooo, I had to serve up my crappy cooked tomatoes. I bought some garlic toasts (another mistake) and topped them with cream cheese (and yet another mistake) and the tomatoes.

What I ended up with was a crunchy garlic toast with a super juicy warm tomato slice and some flavorless cream cheese. Not my best moment.

I knew I could do better. Hell, anyone could do better.

So the next day the oven was back on and the tomatoes were being tossed again. This time I added plenty of salt, pepper and some diced fresh oregano. I also left the tomatoes in the oven until they were shriveled and dried. I almost left them in too long because many became singed around the edges.

Instead of the crunchy garlic toast, I sliced up a fresh bagette, toasted the slices in the oven, and topped the bread with goat cheese and the diced roasted tomatoes.

This time, I hit the jackpot. They were so good we ate every last one. It's definitely something I'd serve up at a dinner party (as if I still have time to host dinner parties).

So lessons learned: If it looks like crap, don't fool yourself, it probably will taste that way too - Just throw it out and start over (or get takeout). And if you screw up, don't worry, even people who write dumb food blogs make mistakes every once in a while.

Not enough time in the oven

Just right