Cooking up a glut of tomatoes

cherry tomatoes

Last week I was lucky enough to go to the Bristol Organic Food Festival for free as a member of the local press.

Myself and Will were treated to an organic breakfast at Bordeaux Quay in Bristol, handed a big bag of organic goodies and then sent on our way to enjoy the festival.
The festival is real foodie haven. There is no doubt in my mind that organic food tastes better and also that the producers of organic food seem to care so much more about it. They care about the way it tastes, how it is produced, the carbon footprint, the food miles and the way it affects nature.
There were stalls piled up with vibrant fruit and vegetables, belonging to farms offering the increasingly popular box schemes.

I tried some fresh beetroot from one stand and it was so sweet I barely recognized it. Then there was organic milk and cheese, absolutely divine organic chocolate and cakes, organic pre-made sauces of a very good quality, organically reared meat made into juicy sausages and burgers and so much more. There is barely anything you can’t get organic these days.

Plamil Foods stand with really delicious dark chocolate made without dairy products.

But back to my glut (I love the word glut) of tomatoes. Unfortunately it wasn’t my own glut grown in my garden because my tomato plants failed miserably in the soggy weather.
In our goody bags of organic treats we each had a box of cherry tomatoes, which posed a problem because Will doesn’t like raw tomatoes and I knew I couldn’t eat two boxes before they went off. So what to do?
I decided to make a pasta sauce and here is what I did:
I cut all the tomatoes in half and placed them seed side up on a baking tray. I dusted them with plenty of salt and pepper, a sprinkle of sugar and dried oregano, some little bits of chopped garlic and drizzled them with a decent amount of olive oil. I also dotted on a little bit of tomato puree to add depth, however I am not sure it made all the difference.
I then roasted them at about 170 degrees for about 40 minutes until thoroughly soft and concentrated in flavour. I tipped them into a blender with the oil, whizzed until smooth and emptied into a saucepan to reheat. I added some fresh basil and some spinach and let it wilt into the sauce, then added my cooked pasta stirred it round and topped with some strong, hard goats cheese. It had really fresh tomato taste but also quite a deep and rich flavour . I am not sure if this would work so well with cheap tomatoes because they just don’t have a good flavour these days.
I wish I could buy all organic food all the time but it is very expensive. So I just choose the most important ingredients to buy organic, these include meat – particularly chicken – milk, eggs and fruit and vegetables that are most likely to be covered in pesticides, such as apples, spinach and tomatoes.

I’m off on holiday to Spain on Monday, so you won’t be hearing from me for two weeks. Hopefully when I am back I’ll have lots of culinary experiences to share!