Straight from the Garden

Some days, being a gardener isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. The constant watering.  The endless weeding. Watching your favorite tomato plant succumb to some horrible little bug that you don’t know the name of.  It’s enough to make you wonder if it’s even worth the trouble.

And then there are days like today when all I have to do is step out into my backyard and pick from my garden the ingredients that I need for a dish. No going to the grocery store and paying the inflated prices for produce that comes from who knows where.  I know where these tomatoes came from. I know that the rosemary I cut has been growing away happily in my little herb garden.  And it makes it all seem worth it.

This side dish of Roasted Tomatoes is a simple one with just a few ingredients but it’s big on taste and goes well with just about everything you could think to serve it with. I had mine with a Caesar salad,  some fresh corn on the cob and a slice of home-baked bread I made this weekend and called it “meatless Monday.”

Roasted Rosemary Tomatoes

Ingredients

3 medium tomatoes, cored and sliced sideways

Kosher salt

2/3 cup of seasoned bread crumbs

1 clove of garlic, finely chopped

1 T of fresh rosemary, finely chopped

2 T of butter

¼ cup Parmesan cheese

1.       Butter a small baking dish. Place tomatoes, cut side up, into dish. Sprinkle with kosher salt

2.       In a small sauté pan melt the butter. Add chopped garlic and sauté for 1 minute.

3.       Add breadcrumbs and rosemary. Toss ingredients together.

4.       Top tomatoes with breadcrumbs and Parmesan cheese.

5.       Place under broiler until breadcrumbs are toasted and tomatoes are heated through.

6.       Serve as a side dish or as a main course with a salad and bread.

My husband’s only complaint with the tomatoes was the type of cheese that I used. He said it was “too crumbly” and said it probably would have been better with a “melty cheese” (like mozzarella).  You could probably fix them that way too and they’d be just as good.