Roasted Cherry Tomatoes

Yesterday I canned 10 more pints of diced tomatoes, bringing my canning totals to 32 pints and 7 quarts.  That's a lot of tomatoes!

Yesterday's canning yield

Our tomato plants are very diseased at this point and ridden with pests, including squash bugs that have decimated our squash and pumpkin and are now looking for other targets.  We're still harvesting a few tomatoes, but they ain't pretty!

Ugly tomatoes

These will be OK for canning, though they certainly won't win a beauty contest.  I have enough to can one more batch this weekend.  We may pull the plants out and go ahead and put the garden to rest for the winter.  We're both kind of done tending it and ready to give up the fight against the very numerous pests that we've encountered this summer.  We will need to dig up the sweet potato vines to see if anything grew beneath the surface, though their patch of garden is quite weed-ridden by this point in the season.

I also canned two pints of roasted cherry tomatoes using a recipe that a colleague shared with me.  I had just enough to can these two jars so I didn't get to sample a bite, but they sure looked and smelled good.  Find the recipe below.

This blurry picture doesn't do them justice; they are pretty!

Roasted Cherry Tomatoes (recipe from Lee Good)

Toss 8 cups halved cherry tomatoes with:

1/2 c. olive oil

2 T. sugar (I go on the scant side)

1 1/2 tsp. salt

Spread on a baking sheet (with sides) and bake at 350 for one hour.  When they are finished (some of them will show a bit of browning at the edges), remove them from the oven and ladle them straight into sterile jars, add hot lids and screw on rings.  Invert jars for at least an hour and make sure lids seal.  Of course, they can be enjoyed immediately as well!