Sweet Roasted Tomatoes

The other day, while visiting with friends over dinner,

I noticed my dish had delicious tomatoes tossed in.

When I read the menu, it said, "Roasted tomatoes."

I've done roasted tomatoes before, but they never turned out like what was having that evening.

When my girl cherub and I were working on dinner the other night,

I thought I would try for the roasted tomatoes again.

The difference between the restaurant and what I had done in the past was simple.

I always tossed the tomatoes, whole, with seasoning and roasted.

While I do like them this way, what it causes the tomato to do is burst open.

Which is fine.

Except that affects the texture of the tomato.

This time, we made one simple change.

We cut the tomatoes in half.

Yes, it was a lot of cutting, because all I had where cute little cherub tomatoes.

But with two of us cutting, we did the entire pint lickety-split!

We loved the end product!

Matter of fact, we wished we had done more.

That way, we could have kept some in the refrigerator to toss into other dishes.

Any size tomatoes will work.

There's no measuring.

The key:  place tomatoes cut side up.

Sweet Roasted Tomatoes

any size tomato, cut
drizzle with a smidge of olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
a wee tiny bit of sugar

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and line a baking sheet with foil.

Wash and cut tomatoes. I used cherub tomatoes and cut in half.

Please tomatoes, cut side up. This is important!

Drizzle with a smidge of olive oil.  I use a squirt bottle; makes it so much easier.

Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste.

Lightly sprinkle sugar over the tomatoes.  For one pint of cherub tomatoes, I used less than 1/2 tsp.

Place in oven and bake until tomatoes shrivel a bit and begin to caramelize.  It took about 20-25 minutes, but this will depend on size and amount you are roasting.

Remove from the oven and loosen the tomatoes from the foil, allowing them to cool on the pan.

Toss into salads, pastas, or quinoa.