Roasted Tomato Marinara

It’s been a mild, cool summer, with lots of foggy cold or cool days. I shan’t complain. I love those kind of days. Because I’m thankful for the mild weather, I have decided to not complain when it gets hot hot hot, which it finally did, in early September. When it gets above 90, it’s difficult to keep the house cool, even with the a/c cranked up. When it gets above 100, I don’t like to turn on the oven or even the stove for very long. Right around this time, Cherry came by with a crop of tomatoes from her dad’s garden. YUM. What to do with so many tomatoes? We had some Caprese salads, with tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and basil. We had some salads. I like my eggs with tomatoes on the side. I had grilled cheese and tomatoes. And still, there will lots. Did I mention that they day before Cherry came over, I went to the Farmers’ Market and got some tomatoes? So while grilling some kind of meat one evening, I decided to grill some tomatoes as well, and then make the grilled tomatoes into a sauce. Fresh tomato sauces can sometimes be rather light, and I thought grilling them might give more depth of flavor.

We have this groovy little grill pan, to keep the tomatoes or other small or delicate yummies from falling through into the fire.

I had sliced the tomatoes in half, and drizzled them with olive oil, then a sprinkle of kosher salt. I think the grilled tomatoes look pretty delicious, don’t you?

Then I did some chopping and cooking and simmering and so on, using my favorite marinara sauce recipe from Giada. The result? A bit too smokey and grilled tasting, actually. Don’t worry, I threw in 3 more fresh tomatoes to balance it out, and the result was delicious. There was a depth there not in usual marinara sauce, but not so smokey that it was obvious and overpowering. So, what to do with such a sauce?

I decided to go get some fancy ravioli at Whole Foods. Gosh, it was expensive. ($9.99 for 12 oz, and I bought 2 packages) And I could have bought half the amount and there would have been plenty for all of us. Fresh ravioli tends to come in odd sizes, and I never know whether to buy one or two packages for the three of us. This is a yummy artisan ravioli, whatever that means, made somewhat locally. Don’t worry, the leftovers didn’t go to waste.

The final result was a delicious, light-but-still-filling meal. So if you find yourself wondering what to do with your late summer tomato bounty, here’s a delicious possibility. Fire up that grill. You could even freeze some for a taste of summer in the middle of the dark cold winter, assuming you have that where you live.