Roasted Cherry-Tomato Sauce

Pretty summer tomatoes:

Just for fun:

 Frozen tomatoes going in:

 Coming out:

I love this recipe's hands-off simplicity, the sweetness tempered with a little vinegar, the bursting tomatoes. We had lots of cherry tomatoes in the summer so we'd make this to use a quantity of them at once. We still had a bunch of them in the freezer till recently, and this was a great use for frozen tomatoes since they burst anyway. The sauce has more liquid to it when made with frozen tomatoes, but that didn't seem like a bad thing. 

The notes with the original recipe suggested in addition to serving this sauce over pasta, to have it on crusty bread or scrambled eggs or with soft cheeses. I've only tried it with pasta so far. I made this at our Apple Weekend tasting dinner last fall. Feels like nourishing comfort food garnished with some shaved Parmesan and a sprinkle of salt.

Roasted Cherry-Tomato Sauce

from marthastewart.com

1 lb. 6 oz. cherry tomatoes

3 cloves garlic, smashed

1/2 C e-v olive oil

2 T balsamic vinegar

1 T fresh thyme (or about 1 t dried)

2 t packed light brown sugar

1 t coarse salt

Preheat oven to 325. Mix tomatoes and garlic in a nonreactive 9 x 13 baking dish. Whisk together remaining ingredients. Drizzle over tomato mixture. 

Bake until tomatoes are softened and caramelized, about 1 hour. Serve warm over pasta topped with Parmesan, salt, and pepper, or at room temperature (see other serving ideas above).