Oven-roasted plum tomatoes with thyme and garlic.

I don’t know what else to call it.

It’s hard to explain why, a mere 48 hours before I’m due to leave on a long-weekend trip, I’d wander into the fields at my CSA farm and haul out another twenty-five pound bag of plum tomatoes. (You might remember the first twenty-five pounds—they’re resting nicely in one of my kitchen cabinets now.)

I only meant to pick a few. Really! But then the farm apprentice gestured to the five-gallon buckets they keep on hand for picking, and suggested I take one. “But I’ve already picked a full bucketful,” I protested weakly. He explained that there were enough plum tomatoes for people to have second bucketfuls, and who was I to decline? Indeed, in the field, the vines were overladen with ripe tomatoes and the picking took me all of about fifteen minutes.

And then several hours later, my sink looked something like this:

Right. This is about a third of the full load.

Since I’d already canned and frozen the first twenty-five pounds, I figured I’d roast these. I highly encourage you to do the same—roasting intensifies the tomatoes’ sweetness and gives them a bit of depth. And it makes your house smell deliriously good. For recipes, I’d like to direct your attention to my western Mass neighbors Eating from the Ground Up (a slow, low roast) and Happy Valley Locavore (a hot, fast roast and sauce). I split my batch in half, roughly, used one recipe for each portion, and stuck everything in the freezer. Time-consuming, but easy.

Here’s a wicked little suggestion: instead of olive oil on a tray or two, dot each tomato half with a little bit of butter. Amazing.

Now, to scrub the pans…