Howdy everyone !

Hope you are having a fine day !

As it is Summer in my hemisphere, it means it now is the proper season for veggies and fruits. As I have been growing a small garden of my own, I had to “prune” some of my plants and remove the excess of fruits, else there would have been too many on the branches of my small trees, and this would have either given small fruits or broken the branches themselves. This is how I found myself with a whole bunch of “baby” green tomatoes… Not wanting to waste them, I thought to myself for a while about how to keep those : first I wanted to let them mature in the sun, on my window sill, but I quickly realized they were slowly drying up. I had to do something with those, and fast !! So, I remembered how I got explained by a chef that making “confits” with fruits and veggies was dead easy !

Confit is French and means something has been slowly cooked. The French jam word “confiture” comes from there : fruits that have been slowly cooked. It is an interesting means of preserving or flavoring food. But when it comes to tomatoes and small veggies, you don’t have to go out of your ways to actually prepare them in such a fashion. What you need is to have them cook very slowly in/near an oven for some time.

So, how do you actually bake the stuff ?
Well, you need an oven, preferably, and if you want to be “green”, you might want to use a cooling oven, for example, after you have baked other goods, as you need not exceed 90° C [194 ° F], and it might be worthless heating a whole oven just to dry up your veggies. (most ovens heat up at higher temperates than 90° C anyway). The way many cooks do it, is when they leave the oven to cool, they put the tray in, and leave the door slightly open, or they’ll put the tray of veggies on top of the oven while it is functioning, in this fashion, no heat is lost !

If you have the oven, then, you only need to get your veggies ready. Rinse them well to get them clean, cut them in chunks (halves or so if you work with round fruits), if you want to prepare tomatoes, and if they are too juicy, take out the seedy parts. Throw your chopped veggies in a bowl, then add herbs, a pinch of salt and pepper (I used whole grains for the pepper). I added a branch of thyme, a few shredded basil leaves, a branch of rosemary, a small shallot, cut into thin slices, some garlic, minced into thin bits, then a little olive oil to my mixture (enough to keep the veggies wet as they will dry up, this will make sure they don’t burn). Then, at this stage, I let it all marinate for about 20 minutes, so that the flavors get blended together well. After that, I use sulfured paper (the kind you use when baking torts and other yummy pastries ), put it all over the bottom of my tray, and delicately arrange the vegetables, one by one, and make sure they do not touch one another, and I’m done, sprinkle the herbs and oil on top of it all.
As my tomatoes were still green, and probably a bit bitter, I added a small teaspoon of raw cane sugar to the preparation, in order to make it all a bit more agreeable.

They then need to be place by/in the oven, and be left off to dry for about 1h30-2 hrs, depending on their sizes, and after that time, they need to be turned the other way around, so that both sides get to dry up evenly. Then again, same amount of time for the other side.
When all of this is done, the “confit” veggies can be left off to dry for a while. Then, for storing, they can be placed in a glass jar, and be covered with some olive oil, and voilà, you have it ! all we are left to do with is enjoy
After eating them all, you can keep the oil and use it for cooking, as it has been flavored by the veggies. And naturally, you can get creative and try this with about anything you like : eggplant, courgettes, onions, pumpkin, you name it !

I hope you find this little recipe tasty and that you enjoy it as much as I have !

Lots of love,
Angie