Slow roasted tomatoes and flatbreads

Friends over for lunch so marinated aubergine with slow roasted tomatoes and flatbread for starters with garlic chicken, baby baked potatoes, corn on the cob and salad picked from the garden.  For pudding we finished off the homemade ice cream leftover from yesterday, raspberry sorbet, vanilla ice cream, cookie dough and crackle crystal with home made butterscotch sauce. Goof food, good company, 6 children and 4 dogs – all dogs ended up in the pond plus at least 3 of the children one of them swimming – very brave.

Slow roast cherry tomatoes – halve crossways, preheat the oven to 180c or gas 4, drizzle the tomatoes with extra virgin olive oil, sea salt, a little sugar and balsamic vinegar, preferable Gift of Oil Pomegranate and Fig, cook for 10 mins then reduce the temperature to 150c or gas 2 and cook for 2-3 hours until semi dried, serve at room temperature.  If you have an Aga then pop them on the floor of the simmering oven for around 3.5 hours, if you use bigger tomatoes you’ll have to cook them for longer, around 5-7 hours depending on the size.

Flatbread, basic bread dough mixture, leave to prove until it doubles in size, preheat oven to 220c or gas8, roll out the bread dough until it is very thin, brush with olive oil and cook for 5-6 minutes until golden brown, turn, brush with olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt or zatar and bake for another 2-3 minutes until that side is golden.  Aga – roasting oven, shelf on top set of runners, you’ll need to bake the flatbreads in a number of batches.

Sunday afternoon with friends