Recipe for Tomatoes on the Verge of a Meltdown

[Megan Hobza]

Hi Veganistas!

It's August and we're swimming in tomatoes. You can't put em in the fridge, so your tomatoes are melting from the heat. Canning and dehydrating take a lot of time -- what if you just want to use up your extra tomatoes before they go south?

 

I find cooking a sauce on the stovetop can make summer tomatoes go bland. Here's a quick, intensely flavored marinara that will use up your soft heirloom tomatoes without cooking away their delicate summer sweetness. 

 

Ingredients:

 

8-10 whole heirloom tomatoes, ripe to overripe

Olive oil

3 dried chili peppers (about 2 t crushed)

1 t fennel seeds

1 t dried oregano

2 cloves garlic

1 t sea salt

1/2 c fresh basil leaves, roughly chopped (optional)

20 kalmata olives, pitted (optional)

 

Turn broiler on high. Smear a glass or metal baking pan with olive oil. Broil tomatoes 5-15 minutes to a side, depending on the power of your broiler.  The tomatoes should be heated through and the skins peeling off, but not much blackened. Remove stems and peel tomatoes; squeeze juice from peels into pan; discard peels.

 

In a food processor, pulse the chili peppers, fennel and oregano to chop. Add garlic and pulse to chop. Add salt, tomatoes and baking pan juice; pulse to chop. Add basil and pulse. Add olives and pulse. It's worth splurging on nice kalmatas from the deli for this -- in such a simple sauce, every ingredient is highlighted.

 

You can serve the marinara over noodles, of course; when we made this at Sharon's yesterday, we broiled some salted/oiled eggplant slices with cornmeal and the marinara was outstanding on that, as a fancy little appetizer. You could do both.

Honest Abe, this recipe is a winner. Enjoy!

Megan