Roasted Tomato Cream Sauce

splendid little roasted tomatoes and garlic

I had most of a carton of "splendid little" tomatoes from Trader Joe's that were verging on the wrong side of splendid. Still perfectly good, but not as firm as when they first came home. So I decided to roast them. I meant to do it last night, but first I had to clean my oven to get rid of all the spillover from Leek & Bean Cassoulet that kept smoking whenever I turned my oven on. After cleaning it I had to just let it run hot for an hour and call my mom in a panic when I saw what looked like smoke and smelled what smelled like a terrible odor (turns out that's normal, and my mom taught me a great trick of putting a bowl of water with baking soda in the hot oven to help absorb the odor. Then my phone died and I hung up on her. Oops.) THEN I had to go to bed. When I got home I had to take the oven racks out and put them in the right way (I had them backwards). It was like my own personal version of "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie."

That said, I have finally managed to make my roasted tomato cream sauce, inspired by the Cappellini in Fresh Tomato Cream Sauce from Vegan Yum Yum. Her recipe is great for when you have nice fresh tomatoes. I think mine is more for when I've neglected mine just a tiny bit.

This is the recipe as I made it, I'll talk more about what I would change at the end, and I'll probably re-post this when I get a final version worked out. But if you're one of the 3 people who reads this, maybe you'll make it and tell me what you think?

Roasted Tomato Cream Sauce

• 1/2 pound little tomatoes
• 3-4 cloves garlic
• olive oil
• salt
• 1/2 tsp dried basil
• 1/4 tsp dried oregano
• 2 small (or 1 large) sprig of thyme
• 2 tbsp (or just big spoonfuls) Tofutti cream cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a small baking pan, combine tomatoes and garlic cloves and toss with olive oil just to cover. Sprinkle with salt and roast for 30 minutes (check them after 20, especially if your tomatoes are very small). You want the tomatoes to get a little color on the tops and they should burst open, releasing their liquid and looking all wrinkly like the picture above. It doesn't sound so pretty but it's a truly beautiful thing to behold (and smell).
Remove from oven and allow the tomatoes and garlic to cool while you get out your food processor or blender and put the herbs and cream cheese in it.

Add the cooled tomatoes and garlic (with all the liquid) to the herbs and cheese. Process until smooth*.

Serve over pasta or polenta and garnish with pine nuts, if you like.


*This makes a very little amount when all is said and done. My 6-cup food processor was too big for the job so the sauce was all up on the sides of the bowl where the blade couldn't get to it.

splendid tomato sauce, being splendid

As for things I would change, mostly it's the amount of tomatoes. I'd keep the garlic the same but perhaps use an whole pound (maybe more?). I'm not totally certain what I have here is 1/2 pound but it was approximately that. I might also thin it out with some soymilk to make it creamier. The sauce as I made it was a bit acidic, soymilk might help cut that. I might also try it without the thyme.