Because I’m getting really sick of tomatoes.
Well, not sick of them. Just running out of ways to use them. Because somebody thought it would be a great idea to plant sixteen thousand heirloom cherry tomato plants –
(Me. That someone was me)
– “just in case” my black thumb is still dedicated to ruining my life.
Apparently, this was my lucky year for tomatoes. But did you know? When you successfully grow stuff, you have to successfully eat it. Or else feel supremely guilty about wasting all that water and effort and time spent on The Sticks-style hanging buckets.
(A “The Sticks-style hanging bucket” is when you staple-gun a bunch of cement buckets to a repurposed phone pole that’s bunjee-corded to your fencepost because you heard tomatoes grow miraculously well when planted upside-down in buckets, but then the wind keeps blowing all the seedlings around so you staple-gun some row covers to the cement buckets, and then you realize the sad fact that this contraption actually improves upon your landscaping, because you live out in The Sticks and haven’t watered an ornamental plant in a really long time because there are more pressing things at hand, and then you cry.)
And then, you grab some garlic, some onion, and a jalapeño, and make roasted cherry tomato salsa.
Enjoy with jicama “chips,” or, if you’re feeling sassy, you might even choose to eat it with some non-GMO organic corn chips. Y’know, if it’s the weekend. Or one of the other days of the week.
- 2 Tbs. cooking fat – olive oil, melted coconut oil, or melted ghee
- 1 full head of garlic, trimmed of extra paper-like skin but with the skin otherwise intact
- 1 large onion, cut into quarters, or 2 smaller onions, cut in half (unless it’s falling off, leave papery layers of skin on)
- 1 jalapeño pepper, sliced in half lengthwise and seeded (if you’re a huge wuss like me and can’t handle the heat)
- 2 cups cherry tomatoes (any color)
- Juice from 1 lime
- 1 tsp sea salt (or more to taste)
- Cilantro to garnish
- Preheat oven to 400° F
- Coat garlic, onion, tomatoes and jalapeño in cooking fat.
- Wrap the whole head of garlic loosely in an aluminum foil “pouch” and seal the pouch by folding edges over. Place pouch on large baking sheet. [b]You’ll cook it for 40 minutes, adding other veggies along the way.[/b]
- Add onions to the baking sheet after 10 minutes (so they roast for 30 of 40 minutes)
- Add tomatoes and jalapeño to the baking sheet after 20 minutes (so they roast for 20 of 40 minutes)
- Once all veggies are done roasting, remove outer layers of skin as necessary: for the garlic, you can easily remove skin or squeeze garlic from the cloves; for the onions, simply remove outer layers if burned; for the tomato, pinch off skin (optional).
- You can chop all veggies by hand if you like a chunky salsa; you can place all in a food processor and pulse a few times for a smoother consistency.
- Add lime juice, sea salt to taste, and cilantro to garnish.
- Sorry, this ended up sounding way more complicated than it actually is. I hate breaking things down into steps.
- Mkay, eat it!
2 Responses
Jealous of your tomato abundance! We’ve haven’t had many tomatoes this year. 🙁 Last year when we had a huge surplus, we dehydrated a ton of cherry tomatoes and had “sun-dried” tomatoes all winter. Yum!
Love this, gonna make it this weekend!