Recipe: Confit of Tomatoes

Ingredients:

• Tomatoes
• Olive oil
• Salt
• Herbes de Provence

Directions:

Cut however many tomatoes you have in half across the belly (or, along the latitude).  Doesn't matter how big or small the tomatoes are., though small grape or cherry tomatoes might be too small since their ratio meat to skin is perhaps to small.

Over medium-high heat a couple tablespoons of olive oil in a nonstick pan. You want to try and fill the entire pan with tomato halves, so that might determine either the size of the pan you use or the number of tomatoes... or both.

Add tomato halves, cut side down whenever they are ready.  No need to wait until the pan comes to temperature.

Sprinkle with a bit of salt, say a teaspoon, and some herbes de Provence, say two teaspoons for the number of small-ish tomatoes pictured above.

Let it cook away until the tomatoes start to slump down a bit and you have a dark brown caramelized bottom of the tomatoes, about 20 mins.

Serve with cooked side face up.  So yummy.

I'm baaaaaack!

It was nearly 8 years and 3 months when I last posted.  My intentions of blogging and making more public my inner-most thoughts and feelings went out the window as I scrambled to find work after grad school, and then scrambled to build a family once I found work.

And, well, now I don't "work" because three kids kind of take up some of my time.

But the thing is, I still volunteer in the community, I still find time to cook, and I still hang out with my friends... without kids (shocking, I know).  I just do things much differently than I was doing things eight years ago.  I don't take bad food photos with my BlackBerry Pearl, for one thing. I now take bad food photos with my iPhone. And my elaborate week-night meals of handmade pasta or the casual lemon meringue pie are no longer.  I'm super good about putting a yummy meal on the table with whatever I remember I have in the fridge or whatever my CSA box contained that week.

So, as I re-launch AmniEats, I start simple, with a confit of tomatoes.  It's a super easy side dish that brings to the forefront a vegetable (okay fine, fruit) that often gets made into a sauce or thrown in with lots of other things: tomatoes. Tomato season is on the horizon, so keep this one in mind when you have a ton around the kitchen.

I first ate this when visiting my husband's family in Carcasonne, France. This part of the family lives in a rustic chateau that once was the main house of a vineyard.  The house and vineyard are now separate, but I know the vineyard still operates today. My husband's aunt and cousins roasted a whole duck in the oven and served these tomatoes on the side. The slightly caramelized bottoms were sweet and just a touch crusty, while the rest of the tomatoes were full of sweet, acidic flavor.  They sprinkled just a bit of salt and herbes de Provence, giving an added air of earthiness to balance the acidity.

I make this at home on a weeknight to accompany a roasted chicken leg and even for entertaining with lamb chops--it's that versatile.