This week was scorching hot. I did turn on the oven a few times, to bake a savory tart, to bake a sable breton galette base for freshly picked strawberries, and to toast ramen noodles and almonds for a refreshing napa cabbage salad. I also turned on the oven to roast tomatoes provençal which is this week’s recipe pick for French Fridays with Dorie.

Local tomatoes are not yet available in the markets, though greenhouse ones are just starting to show their rosy faces. We can also get decent hydroponic ones grown in Maine, which is what I chose.

This is a definitely a recipe to file away for peak tomato season. This fabulous side screams summer when the aromas waft through the kitchen. Other than the need to turn on the oven on a hot summer day, there is no challenge involved. You clip a handful of mixed herbs from the back door herb garden. That meant rosemary, winter savory, thyme, marjoram, and chives for me. The herbs are chopped with some garlic and spooned onto tomato halves which are drizzled with olive oil and roasted until they are soft and fragrant.

Not only do the tomatoes provençal smell like summer, they taste like too. They rounded out our “peek of summer” meal. We ate a greens tart made with greens from our CSA share (plus the tops from the beets and radishes too) and some Georgia corn and tomatoes provençal. Yum!

This weekend, we enjoyed a visit from one of my dearest childhood friends and her family. We’ve been fortunate to be able to rendezvous with them at our Maine cottage every couple of years when they come East to visit family. It is such a treat to reconnect, catch up on our current lives, and reminisce about our shared youthful adventures. There is nothing like a longtime friend.

Check out what the other Doristas thought of the tomatoes here. If you’d like to try making these scrumptious tomatoes for yourself, you don’t really need a recipe. If you feel like you must have one, you can find it in Dorie Greenspan’s book Around My French Table or on-line at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.