Roast Tomato Tartine

I don't know about you, but I would rather eat several little meals than one or two big meals a day. This roast tomato tartine is one of my favorites- a couple of these with a glass of red wine is a perfect dinner for me. I use a cast iron skillet to roast the tomatoes with garlic, rosemary and olives. I like the olives to get a little crunchy and the tomatoes to char a bit. All the flavors come together and the olive oil left in the pot with the little bits of black pepper and salt is amazing to dip bread in. I have made this as an appetizer which in reality is what it is, but when cooking for myself this is my entree. The recipe as I have written it yields about 8 tartines, whatever I have leftover is always delicious the next day as well. If you want to make more, it doubles easily- just be sure to use a large enough pan so that everything touches the bottom of the skillet.

I use French Goat Feta which I purchase at Whole Foods, any mild goat cheese will work very well. The olives are seasoned pitted cerignolas or whatever green seasoned olives I have on hand, use your favorite olives, oil cured olives would be great too. For the bread, I use sourdough slices, but French bread would be great as well. I do not peel the garlic before roasting so it doesn't burn, I squeeze it out of it's shell once cooked and spread it on the bread. Oh, one last thing...you can skip the bread and toss with angel hair pasta- yum!



Roast Tomato Tartine

1 pint mixed cherry tomatoes
1/2 cup seasoned green olives
8 garlic gloves (not peeled)
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
3 large sprigs fresh Rosemary (fresh Thyme can be substituted)
freshly ground black pepper
Coarse sea salt

4 oz. french Goat Feta
8 thin slices sourdough bread

1. preheat oven to 450 F.

2. In a cast iron skillet, toss tomatoes, olives, garlic and Rosemary with olive oil. Generously season with salt and pepper. Bake for 30 minutes, stirring once half way through.

3. Reduce oven temperature to 400 degrees, place bread slices on top rack and bake for 2 minutes, flip bread over and bake 2 minutes more.

4. Spread goat cheese on toasted bread slices. Squeeze one garlic clove on top of goat cheese and top with roasted tomatoes and olives. Garnish with additional rosemary or Thyme.