Semi Roasted Tomatoes

I still have a bowlful of tomatoes and who knows what I will conjure up for them (I think salsa will go over quite well as a hana hou) but here is probably the last of my tomato posts: semi roasted tomatoes. I blogged several months ago about roasted tomatoes that were roasted so long I could pick them up to put them in a bowl, pour olive oil over and store in the fridge for a few days. Most of the liquid in the tomatoes were roasted out of them. They reminded me more of sundried tomatoes. I could chop them up and sprinkle them on pizzas or put in pasta. The "semi" roasted tomatoes is more for the lazy man use right away cooks. All I did was turn the oven on to 400 degrees, cut the tomatoes in half and put them in a pan (olive oil drizzled on the bottom). Then I sprinkled them with Hawaiian salt, pepper and I put peeled garlic cloves all over the place. As a last minute idea, I chopped up a red onion and sprinkled it on top of one half of the tomatoes. This was a great addition. The onions caramelized nicely (as did the garlic). And then I drizzled more olive oil on top of the tomatoes. And then I roasted for maybe an hour or so. Not nearly as long as my other post (the roasted tomatoes). Semi roasting them, if anything, allowed me to deepen the flavor of the tomatoes and then add them, once I deemed them done (which is when I was hungry and wanted to eat already), to mushrooms and snow peas.

This was just the right amount of tomatoes (this is a 10x13 pan, I think) for a pasta dinner. I had the pot of water on the stove, ready to start it up for the noodles (spaghetti) in about an hour).

Hāmākua Mushrooms. They are the best. I think these are oyster mushrooms. It doesn't matter what kind of mushrooms they are. I love them all. Yum. Yum.

In this pan: mushrooms, snow peas (not a popular veggie is pasta dishes but I had it in the fridge and I wanted to use them and I wasn't sure when I would get the chance to so I just added them in. And they turned out to be a good addition).

Close up view. I also threw in some fresh basil leaves, which I happened to pick up at the open market. You can get a nice bunch for just $1. Not a bad price! I wish I had a picture of this sauce ladled on top of spaghetti noodles, with parmesan grated on top. It would make for a nice photo. Oh well. We were HUNGRY! And everything got eaten up, if that is any indication of the 'ono factor.