Roasted Tomatoes & Loving

I love roasting tomatoes and freezing them to save for winter. For one thing, it’s so quick and once they are frozen it’s easy to just pull out however many you need without defrosting too much. Sometimes, with canned tomatoes, I worry about not using an opened jar up fast enough and then losing it. But when I freeze these, I can just reach and and grab three for a tart or a whole bunch for chili. It’s the best of summer stretched through to the cold months! And it’s starting. This morning it was quiet and a hint of the coming coolness was coming in the windows so I roasted this year’s first pan of sweet heirloom tomatoes. Now, we just have to see if any of them actually make it into the freezer! There’s pizza on the menu tonight. (Edit 9/10/12 – check out some tips on how I roast and freeze these tomatoes at the bottom of the post.)

Here are some of things I’ve been loving this week:

•  I really love the shape of this sweater and I bet it would be easy to come up with a similar handknit.

• I’m starting to get that end-of-the-summer-season obsession with stocking up for the winter. Maybe it has something to do with both Romain and I agreeing that the time just went by so fast this year thanks to early cool weather and lack of vacation time. In any case, I just keep adding recipes to my must-preserve list.

• True loving: My good friend (and bridesmaid!) Lindsey is trying to come up with enough funds to rescue sweet Meena, a street dog with a prior leg injury, from the dangerous life she’s been living around Lindsey’s fiancé’s neighborhood in India. These poor animals are unwanted and impossible to get locals to adopt and, unfortunately, often abused. She’s scrabbling to find some solutions before she has to leave, hopefully, with Meena. As an animal lover my heart goes out to both Meena and Linds. If you think you can, you can donate to Meena’s cause here.

• This newly updated book on the Brontës and the slowly disappearing portrait by Branwell Brontë sound so fascinating and might be just what I need to pull my head out of the noise of city life a bit.

• Summer may be coming to an end but I’ve got ice cream on the brain and am dying to experiment with some flavors. When we were in San Francisco we made it to The Ice Cream Bar (amazing) and I have dreams of starting my own ice cream shop in Paris. This city needs a shake-up on the ice cream scene!

• The new Sweet Paul Magazine issue is live! If you don’t know it, check it out. This issue is packed with inspiring Fall ideas and my list of things to try just got quite a bit longer.

I know this week was kind of quiet on the blog but it’s because I’ve been busy behind the scenes working on some fun posts for the coming weeks. So keep you’re eyes peeled for next week!

happy friday!

Any great weekend plans?

xo,

A.

Edit 9/10/12 – I had a request on the Facebook page about my tips for roasting and freezing and wanted to share them here too. First, use tomatoes that are ripe and sweet and not massive in size. Wash them and halve them the long way. Place them on a parchment lined roasting sheet but not so close that they are all touching, this is important later. Sprinkle with sea salt and fresh pepper and drizzle them with olive oil. Roast in a 425°F/220°C oven for 25 to 30 minutes (for small to medium tomatoes) or until they start to get a little color on the edge and they are puffed and juicy. When done, take them out of the oven and leave on the roasting pan to cool completely. If they have released a lot of liquid, spoon this off the pan. Once cool, place the pan with the tomatoes in the freezer and when the tomatoes are completely frozen you can pluck them off the pan and store in a freezer bag. By keeping them from touching and spooning off any liquid, you’ve made it a lot easier to get off the pan once they are frozen. If they are persistent in sticking to the pan, try running a little hot water on the bottom of the pan and the tomatoes will pop right off. Now you have roasted tomatoes that are easy to pull individually from the freezer bag. When I typed all this out on Facebook, I shortened ‘tomato’ to ‘tom’ and in the words of Julia: “It will be such a treat to have them in the winter like you say (when you are PINING for fresh toms!)”

Advertisement