Roasted Cherry Tomatoes

I love a good side dish.  A few weeks ago, I went out to a  fancy local restaurant with a friend, Barracuda Grill.  The food was hit-and-miss, which was somewhat disappointing.  It is allegedly Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones’ favourite restaurant on-island- my guess is, they get to order off of a different menu.  I loved my meal (a slightly seared yellowfin tuna with gnocchi, hummus and a balsamic whip), but my friend’s food (some sort of lobster pasta dish) just wasn’t that good.  What I found was so delightful about my meal, however, was that although the fish was beautifully prepared and tasted great, the side dishes both complimented the fish and also provided a new palette, a different type of taste.  My friend’s dish was a lot of the same, so she was stuck with the mediocre lobster.  We ended up drinking lots of wine and having a gorgeous gingerbread dessert which saved our dining experience.  But the dinner got me thinking about side dishes.

This roasted cherry tomato is part of a recipe I made recently (and plan on posting here), but I would eat it a million times over- by itself, thrown into pasta, with goats cheese and pesto on foccacia, tossed with fresh mozzarella balls- I can’t wait to make it again in a bigger quantity to try it all out.  And I promise, I will be sure to talk about it.  Here they are below, all chopped and ready to be made sexy.

Roasted Cherry Tomato Recipe

• 1 cup cherry tomatoes (next time, I plan on doubling this, so maybe you want to do the same!)
• 2-3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp brown sugar
• 1 dash of seasoning salt (You can use regular salt or sea salt, but I really like seasoning salt.)
• Several dashes of coarse sea salt

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cut cherry tomatoes in half.  Arrange in a large oven-proof baking dish.
3. Mix olive oil, brown sugar and seasoning salt in a bowl.
4. Pour olive oil mixture over tomatoes, tossing to coat.
5. Ensure all tomatoes are cut-side up.  Sprinkle with a few dashes of coarse sea-salt on top.
6. Place in oven and bake 45 minutes, or until tomatoes are shrunken and sweet.

I will have dreams about these tomatoes.  I served them as a garnish to a quinoa dish and my dad wanted to know if he could have more.  I may have snuck a few out of the dish to eat them solo, but I’m not confessing to anything.