Tomato Jam

Earlier this summer when I was still living in Kalamazoo, right at the time Greg came to Columbus to start his new job, the very first local tomatoes of the season arrived at the Farmer's Market. I got really excited and bought a heaping quart-size box of them, probably six or seven total. I believe the purchase occurred before Greg moved down. And then he moved. And there they sat on the kitchen counter for maybe a week or so. Needing something easy to do with them before they rotted away, I turned to the internet for inspiration. And I found this wonderful recipe at Apartment Therapy's sister site, The Kitchn. I thought it would be appropriate to share now given the glut of tomatoes that occurs this time of year.

Just slice up somewhere around five tomatoes like so while preheating oven to 325°F. I threw in maybe a third of a red bell pepper I had sitting in the fridge too, though the original doesn't call for it.

Top of with slivers of garlic, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and a small amount of cinnamon. No measuring necessary, this recipe is more art than science.

And let them go for three hours till they look like this. The Kitchn recipe says to crank up the heat to 450°F and let them go for another hour, but I didn't find that turning up the heat or letting them go that much longer was necessary. In fact, I was kind of afraid I would have nothing but carbon left if I did so. So I just pushed everything towards the middle and let it go until there was a reasonable amount of black around the edges, maybe another 20 minutes? (Again, less science more art.)

When I felt it was ready, I took it out of the oven, sprinkled with some fresh chopped basil (not called for in the original, but if you have fresh basil sitting around, why not?), mixed everything around and let it cool. Then I scooped up this sticky, smokey, sweet goodness.

Not too long ago I bought a bunch of heirlooms at the Worthington Farmer's Market. After two of them promptly rotted, I made jam again.

And it ended up as the sauce for shrimp and linguine. In fact both times I've made this, it's ended up on pasta. Next time I am determined to get it onto some toasted bread with goat cheese. (Note: if you do use it as a pasta sauce, reserve some of the pasta cooking water and add it when you toss the jam and pasta, otherwise things can get pretty sticky.)

Yum! So easy!