For the longest time, I never really knew what to think of cherry tomatoes. Or what to do with them. Though I might have regarded them as more interesting and Barbie-sized than the usual, boring (and most often flavorless) Beefsteak tomatoes I'd normally encountered, I left them where I felt they rightly belonged-- at the Sizzler salad bar, carelessly splashed by a variety of commercial salad dressings.

Several (and I do mean several) years later, when God's cruel irony found me making salads to earn a living, I learned that cherry tomatoes had a very special purpose in life. From my guardian angel of a chef/boss named Jan Gardener, I learned that these tiny little tomatoes were meant to be cooked. Sautéed, braised, or (best of all) roasted.

Jan would throw them in a pie pan, add a couple of pats of butter, some fresh thyme sprigs from her business partner's farm in Calistoga, sprinkle a little salt and pepper over them and then pop them in the oven. When they emerged, they were heat-burst, saucy, and very, very tomato-y. She'd serve these precious little (exploded) angels-straight-from- heaven (or, more correctly, straight from the oven) over bowls of creamy polenta and cheese or alongside roasted chickens and grilled steaks.

Simple. And utterly delightful.

It's a busy week here at home. I haven't the time to roast a chicken and I lack the outdoor space to fire up a grill for steaks. And, since I haven't been feeling the pull of polenta lately, I needed to find another way to serve these tomatoes up. Since I'm only home durning lunchtime hours, I craved a sandwich. So this is what I came up with today:

B, L & Oven-Roasted T

It's not a mind-blowing sandwich, nor should it be. If ever I felt that a sandwich had that sort of effect on my life, I'd know that I just wasn't getting out enough. It is, however, a really, really good one. Rather than allowing the bacon to be the star, as it usually is in this flavor trio, the tomatoes take center stage. I mean this is a figurative sense, since the tomatoes are actually smeared on the bread and the bacon is at the actual center.

Oh, I think you know what I mean.

And, by the way, I am not going to give you any instruction as to how to fry bacon. For that, I'll just have to show you a cartoon my friend Lea drew.

Makes 4 sandwiches (with leftover tomatoes, which is a good thing)

Ingredients:

For the roasted cherry tomatoes:

2 cups cherry tomatoes

3 to 4 tablespoons of butter

A few sprigs of fresh thyme

Salt and pepper to taste

For the rest of the sandwich:

12 slices of bacon (your choice), cooked

A few leaves of arugula (my choice) or any lettuce of your choice if you're going to be a stickler about thing and insist upon sticking with the "l" word. In this particular case, the "l" word being "lettuce."

Mayonnaise for spreading on:

8 slices of toasted bread (your pick, pal)

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 375ºF

2. Rinse tomatoes in a colander. Shake dry.

3. Arrange tomatoes in an even(-ish) layer in a medium sized cast iron skillet, or cake pan, or whatever you feel like roasting the little dears in, so long as it is non-reactive. dot with butter, toss on the thyme sprigs, and sprinkle with a little salt and pepper. Throw in oven. Roast for about 45 minutes, stirring them up occasionally to make them pop and release their juices. They may be declared "done" when most (but not all) of the liquid has evaporated and the tomatoes have slightly shriveled.

4. Remove tomatoes from oven and let cool.

5. To assemble sandwich (I feel like a fool for even explaining this, because I am quite certain you know how to put together a damned sandwich), spread the inside of your bottom piece of toast with roasted cherry tomatoes, lay three slices of bacon on top, then cover those in a layer of lettuce or arugula or some other green. Slather your top layer of toast with mayonnaise (or aioli or whatever you feel like, really) and close.

6. Repeat until you have fed everyone within reach who eats bacon.

7. Go outside. It's nice out.

This is a tale of three girls: an early girl, a dirty girl and a lazy girl. The early girl definitely did not get the worm. She is a luscious ripe tomato with the perfect balance of sweetness and acidity. The dirty girl is often hot and has her own natural beauty...she's Dirty Girl Produce, an organic farm located near Santa Cruz and the grower of those beautiful tomatoes. And the lazy girl? Well, that would be me, but that's a longer story...

Now I'm a girl who loves home-canned foods. Bell jars that have been meticulously sterilized and then lovingly filled with someone's recipe for apricot jam, apple butter, and raspberry jelly make my heart go pitter pat. When someone shows up at my house with a gift of handmade preserves, my esteem for them grows and like the Grinch, my heart grows 10 sizes, bursting with appreciation for their efforts.

I have also been known to do some canning of my own. For years, an old and decrepit apricot tree sat in my backyard, looking scragglier by the year, but producing the sweetest apricots with just a hint of tartness. By far the best apricots I've ever eaten that produced the best jam I've ever made. Thick and sweet, it lay perfectly on freshly toasted challah or in a tart pan. We had so many apricots I made two to three dozen jars of jam each year in addition to making numerous tarts and simply eating tons fresh. We gave away apricot jam at Christmas to family members and neighbors and then had more to keep for ourselves. But then about three years ago, spring arrived and hardly any buds bloomed and the branches lay half naked in summer. We got 5 apricots that year. The next year, the craggy limbs lay bare -- our apricot tree was dead. I've since searched for apricots worthy of canning, but haven't yet found them.

But our apple tree survives, albeit in an even craggier state than the apricot tree seemed to have ever been. Poor tree has fire blight and although I keep saying I need to cut it down, I can't bring myself to actually do it (or, rather, ask my husband to do it). So this year, I am grateful to still have my usual bags of apples ready to be turned into apple butter, waiting in the basement.

What does any of this have to do with the lazy girl? Everything. After years of canning apricots and apples, I'm tired: tired of peeling, tired of sticking produce in a food mill, tired of hot water baths, and tired of sterilizing jars. I love the results, but not the work. So when I bought a 20 lb box of Early Girl tomatoes from Dirty Girl Produce this last weekend, I knew I couldn't bear to can them when I would just have to break out the canning equipment next weekend all over again to turn those apples into apple butter.

So what do you do with 20 lbs of tomatoes and a can-not attitude? What do you do when you have no desire to stand over a boiling pot of tomatoes in 90 degree weather? You roast and freeze. That's right. I let my oven do most of the work and then after that, I'm letting my freezer do the rest.

The roasting idea came from an amazing plate of roasted tomato risotto Kim Laidlaw recently made for me (from her own box of Dirty Girl Produce Early Girl tomatoes). Roasting had given the tomatoes a caramelized intense sweetness that I wanted to replicate. So, after seeding and then roasting most of my tomato haul with some olive oil and freshly minced oregano, the tomatoes were concentrated down into their essence. Each tomato was bursting with a deep summer tomato flavor and the kitchen was filled with a sweet heady aroma. I added in the cooked juices from the seeds and stirred to create a deep red sauce. After it cooled, I ladled equal amounts into Ziplock bags and then set the lot in the freezer. The perfume of summer and sunshine now stored and ready to be used in sauces and stews this winter, accomplished without me burning myself on a hot jar or pressing even one tin lid.

Next week, I'll can; but this week, I'm happy to be lazy.

How to make frozen roasted tomato preserves
1. Wash and dry your tomatoes.
2. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees if using a convection oven and 400 degrees if not.
3. Set up a work area with the following:

• Your washed and cleaned tomatoes
• Pans lined with aluminum foil that have been greased on the top side with olive oil
• A fine-mesh colander set atop a large bowl
• A cutting board
• A knife

4. Remove any blemishes or bruises from the tomatoes and then cut each one in half.

5. Gently squeeze the tomato halves into the colander so the seeds fall inside.
6. Set the tomato halves on the lined baking sheets, cut side up.
7. Sprinkle extra virgin olive oil, kosher or sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, and freshly minced or dried oregano or basil onto your tomatoes.
8. Bake for 50 minutes if using a convection oven or 1 hour if not (or until the tomatoes are cooked through, being careful not to burn them).
9. When the tomatoes have only ten minutes to go, place the juice from the bowl into a pot and slowly boil with some salt and pepper for about five minutes.
10. Remove the pans from the oven and scrape the tomatoes into a small pile using a wooden spatula and then spoon them into a large bowl.

11. Add in the cooked tomato juices and stir.
12. Let cool until room temperature and then ladle into quart-sized freezer bags that have been labeled with the date and contents.

13. Set bags in the freezer until ready to use.