Roasted Tomatoes With Chèvre

I grew up with my grandparents on their farm for a few years and it was wonderful. Hanging out in the garden with my Grandma Zeve who would find tomato worms, and with her bare hands, rip them in half (eww) and then throw them to the chickens who ran around all day eating any pests for her. They actually fought over those green juicy fat things. I'm so glad that I'm not a chicken. I remember running barefoot through the dirt carrying jars of water out to my Baba who was on his tractor working in the 40 acres of peaches, or sitting in the cherry tree spitting down cherry pits until I had eaten enough. It was a life every kid should know.

I think once you have had real farm ripe produce, nothing else will ever taste right particularly, when the hands that grew them also belong to the people you love. At the fruit stand yesterday they had ripe tomatoes that were ready for anything. I really never cook tomatoes because there is no need to change what is already a perfect creation. But it was time for something different, and it was well worth the change. Enjoy...


SLOW ROASTED TOMATOES WITH GOAT CHEESE
(the photo shows herbs on the tomatoes in the very beginning, it is too long of a cooking time though and I removed them before putting the tomatoes in the oven and added them back towards the end of baking , but the photo was beautiful so I wanted to show it)

4 vine ripe tomatoes
Olive oil
2-3 garlic cloves
Pepper fresh ground
Salt kosher or other
2 T fresh herb leaves (I used marjoram)
Goat cheese 1 small log of chevre

Preheat oven to 250 degrees

Wash and dry the tomatoes, cut out the stem core, cut in half.
Coat well with olive oil.
Place on parchment lined baking sheet cut side up.
Slice garlic as thin as possible and place 3-4 slices on each tomato half.
Drizzle a few drops of olive oil on top of the garlic.
Pepper and salt.

Bake for 4-5 hours

Add the chopped herbs and bake 1/2-1 hour more.

Place 1 small spoon of goat cheese on each half, a few more drops of olive oil, and a little salt and pepper and return to oven for 5 minutes.

Serves 4.

All you really need is time for this, a lot of time, it is not difficult in any way, shape or form, you just have to wait for them to be done, there is no hurrying 'slow'. Timing really depends on the size of the tomatoes. Mine were 3-4 inches across. I used my very favorite salt...Australian pink flake, but I think I have about 8 or 10 to choose from. And I used marjoram because it is what I had. They are wonderful as a side dish and for BBQ's because the last minute work is so simple, basically a blob of cheese. I started eating them before adding the chevre which was still really good and I almost forgot to take photographs, but do use the chevre, it is even more wonderful together.