Last year I discovered a new way to preserve Roma tomatoes: roasted, in the oven. I’m sure that all of you have access to Romas, either from your garden, your neighbor’s garden, or the Farmers’ Market. My point is, you need to go buy some and then make these tomatoes.

I am not sure what is the best, most efficient way to do these tomatoes—I’m still experimenting. So I’m just going to tell you about the several different methods I have employed. The recipe and method are flexible, so you’ll have to play around with the ingredients yourself. My point is, pretty much anything you try will be fine.

But whether or not you make these tomatoes is non-negotiable. That’s my main point.

First thing: Don’t burn them. But even that is a matter of taste. My mother thinks that anything that has a caramelized flavor tastes burned. I happen to love the caramelized flavor—the bits of the tomato that turn dark brown and chewy. I was able to salvage a small fraction of the tomatoes pictured above. My mother would’ve chucked them all.

Oven-Roasted Roma Tomatoes
I think this is adapted from Barbara Kingsolver’s book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, but I’m sadly too lazy to go look it up and double check on that. You ought to read the book anyway. Let me know if you find the recipe there, okay?

A medium-sized bowl of Roma tomatoes
about a cup of chopped, mixed fresh herbs (basil, oregano, thyme, parsley, rosemary)
several cloves of minced garlic
a couple splashes of olive oil, maybe 1/4 cup
a couple splashes of red wine, optional
salt and black pepper

Wash the tomatoes, cut the tops off, and slice them in half, lengthwise. Lay them skin side down on a large cookie sheet that has sides and that has been lined with tinfoil. To make this whole process worthwhile, you’re going to want to fill your oven with as many trays of tomatoes as will fit on your racks, and lay the tomatoes as close together as is possible without them laying on top of each other. They will shrink to about half their original size. I do two big trays at a time, though I would do more if I had more racks for my oven. (Mr. Handsome, can you please help me out here? Find me another two racks?)

Now, there are different methods for the next part. Here’s three of them. Pick one, or create a new one.

Method #1
In a small bowl, mix together the chopped herbs, garlic, olive oil, red wine, salt, and pepper. Using your fingers, distribute the herb mixture over the tomatoes, making sure that each tomato has received a little dollop of green goodness and juice.

Method #2
Sprinkle the chopped herbs over the tomatoes. Then the chopped garlic, the salt, and the pepper. Drizzle the olive oil over all, followed by a couple splashes of wine.

Method #3
Put the prepared tomatoes in a large bowl. Add the olive oil, wine, and garlic and gently toss to coat. Lay the tomatoes out on the trays. Sprinkle the chopped herbs over all.

Another idea, which may become Method #4 in the near future
Prepare them as in method #3, but use herbes de Provence in place of fresh herbs, as in the Tomato Bread Pudding recipe that nearly slayed me.

Last night I lighted on the best way to roast these tomatoes. See, they take a long time in the oven and during the day I often run into trouble because I want to bake granola or bread or potatoes or something and the tomatoes are in there, hogging up all the space. Also, I’ve been roasting them a little too quickly and they’ve been too caramelized (okay, Mom, burned) while at the same time still being a bit too juicy. So last night I turned the oven to 225 degrees right before I went to bed (around 9:30 pm) and they roasted all night long. I could smell them when I got up to go to the bathroom, and that made me smile to myself because I was being productive even while I was sleeping. I checked on them at around 6:15, and only about six halves were too heavily caramelized—the rest were just fine, and about half of them were not quite done. Tonight I’ll set the oven to just 200 degrees.

Pull the tomatoes off the trays, one by one, as they finish roasting, and lay them on a dinner plate. When they are all off the trays and have cooled to room temperature, put them in a quart jar, label it “Roasted Romas ‘08″, and put them in your freezer.

These tomatoes are fabulous in grilled cheese sandwiches, or any kind of sandwich for that matter. They taste rich and warm and darkly tomato-y. Chop them up and add them to pasta dishes, pesto, salads, dips, dressings, and so forth. They will disappear pretty fast, so you better run your oven every night for the rest of the month of August if you plan to have enough to make it through the winter.

Just a suggestion.

Out on yesterday’s pre-dawn run-slash-walk I passed a house that has two enormous pear trees out front. I’ve been watching these trees for several years now. I’ve toyed with the idea of knocking on the people’s door and seeing if they wanted their pears, but the trees seem cared for and last year they even had ladders out there and were filling buckets with pears, so I decided that I didn’t have a chance. But this morning as I came puffing down the road, I saw an older man walk out to the end of the driveway to check his mailbox. So I stopped and politely inquired (that means I said “sir”) if those pear trees were his. They were, he said. Do you use them? No. Could we have them? Yes. I explained where I lived (I didn’t want him to go and give the pears to someone else because I was just a nobody to him), and we talked about how and when to pick them and I ran away, nay, bounded away, for I was filled with that tickle-ly gleeful feeling.

After my morning café con leche, I made a 30 mile round trip to pick up more produce. At the first farm I bought two bushels of Rambo apples and a bushel of nectarines. I’ve never done nectarines before, but I decided since it was a good year for fruit and the farm had them, I might as well make hay (or rather, jams, dried fruit, canned fruit, and sauces) when the sun shines.

Then I drove a few more miles to a neighboring farm where two bushels of Romas were waiting for me. A young man came out and loaded them into the car for me. I noticed that they had been sorting peppers, they were all over the place, so I asked if they ever sell seconds of the peppers. He said, “Oh, you can just have those.” I gaped at him, “Are you serious?” He gave me a box and I filled it with giant, only very slightly blemished (what are knives for anyway?) yellow, orange, red, and green peppers. He offered to get me another box, but I declined, all the while feeling guilty for turning him down since I could see the sun was shining and I knew I should be making hay.

But I can only make so much hay.

I don’t even know what to do with all these peppers. Freeze them? I still have peppers in the freezer from last winter. If I had a grill I’d roast them. Just saute a big ol’ pile and wolf them down?

The moral of my tale is this:

1. Early morning exercise pays off.

2. Don’t drink coffee before going to pick up produce. The general feeling of well-being that comes from drinking coffee eventually wears off and then you suddenly realize that there is a lot of work to do. It’s rather dismaying. And sobering. The only remedy is to go drink another cup of coffee and blog about it.

The Baby Nickel is still nursing.

Apparently he’s pretty thrilled about that.

I’ll give you a second to scoop your chin up off the floor and regroup. (If you have trouble regrouping, as in you aren’t able to comprehend how anyone could nurse a child past the age of one and it makes you angry just to think about it because, good grief, that would just ruin a child and it’s all about the mother being weak and needy anyway, then, well, I’m sorry.)

Yes, he’s a strapping two year old, 30½ months to be exact. Yes, he talks, sometimes while nursing. Yes, he eats solids. And yes, he has bitten me (hard, even drew blood, but I was, breathe in, strong, breathe out) though it was not intentional (he kindly, worriedly, suggested, “Mama put band-aid on ouchie?”).

I never nursed any of my children this long. By this point I was always either pregnant or already nursing a wrinkled, red-faced, squawking infant (aw, shucks, I kind of miss that—stop that, hormones!) and so I’ve never had the chance (and no, I did not have any desire to tandem nurse since I can only handle one child sucking the life out of me at a time) to nurse a child this long. The Baby Nickel is my seca leche, my milk drier-upper, my last child. I’m savoring his babyness. While most of the time I’m jumping up and down with glee over the thought of no diaper bags, no diapers, no sippy cups, no kid in my bed, and no green-and-white plastic booster seat at the table, part of me is a bit melancholy. You know, the sun is setting on that time of my life and all that jazz.

Just for the record, Yo-Yo Boy was weaned at 16 months, Miss Becca Boo at 25 months, and Sweetsie at 18 months. Those are rough guesstimates.

What do I love so much about this nursing a young child thing? I love it that when I tell him it’s time for milk he drops everything and starts running towards me, grinning, smacking his lips, panting in excitement. I lift him up and he wraps his arms around my neck, squeezing tight. I love it that at the same time he is becoming fiercely independent, he still needs me in this special, tangible way. Totally precious.

I love it how he stops nursing and pulls off the breast to join in the conversation. For example, last night we were all lounging around downstairs. I was perched on a stool, nursing, when I detected that someone had let fly a stinky. I demanded, “Who farted?” and The Baby Nickel promptly pulled off the breast and declared, “I did!” I ignored him and persisted in asking around. The Baby Nickel kept saying, “I did! I did!” I finally looked at him and asked, “Did you fart?” He grinned and said, “Yeah, I faht”, and went back to nursing, immensely pleased with himself.

In the morning I always fix my coffee before sitting down to nurse him. The other morning The Baby Nickel got out all my coffee stuff. I told him that I already had my coffee and pointed to my travel mug that was sitting on the kitchen counter. He pointed to my coffee cup and demanded, “Drink your coffee. I want milk!” So that’s what he was getting at when he pulled out my coffee fixings—he was trying to hurry me along so we could get down to the important business.

I don’t know how much longer I’ll be nursing my baby (I can assure you he’ll be weaned by the time he goes to college). We skip nursings here and there. Mr. Handsome often puts him down to sleep at night, and some mornings are rushed and we never get around to snuggling together. I’m trying to get my mom and dad to take all four kids for a 24 hour period (to be in my house with no children for an entire day will be pure bliss). So it’s winding down, this nursing thing, and life is moving on.

But it sure is sweet while it lasts.