Recipe: Slow Roasted Cherry Tomatoes on Avocado Toast + Taylors of Harrogate Kew Gardens Fruit & Herbal Teas
Something I have learnt in almost 6 years of blogging is that new ideas are not necessarily the be all and end all. Anyone who thinks that avocado toast is anything news ought to crawl back under their rock and stay there. The idea of topping my avocado toast with slow roasted cherry tomatoes for me came from Diana Henry’s brilliant book A Change Of Appetite which I’ve been vaguely obsessed with since I was given it for Christmas, but Waitrose have done a version this month too. But I wanted to share it with you all anyway, because it does make a brilliant breakfast. And I think both of those recipes overcomplicate matters. I’ve tried to make things as simple as possible. This is a weekday breakfast, after all.
I’m spending a lot more time outside than I used to, and it has become even more important for me to be able to stay full until lunchtime. I’m still at home in the mornings, so I can still make myself a mid-morning snack if I want something before lunch, but I have found that if I’m really hungry already when I sit down to eat my lunch, my lunch does not last me until dinner time. It suddenly hit me the other day that I’m going to be turning 22 in March. I feel that 21 is the last age you can still really hide from real life adult situations; you could still be at university. 22 is for grown ups. I even paid my taxes for the first time this month.
Last Autumn I think it was, on one of your Mummy Daughter trips to Waitrose (we both lead very exciting lives) we decided to try something a little different in the tea department, so we picked up to try a new tea we had not spotted before: Taylors of Harrogate’s Sweet Rhubarb tea, as part of the brands collaboration with Kew Gardens. We both became a little obsessed with it, so we soon branched out to other flavours. My favourite warming cup this Winter has been their Spiced Apple flavour (it tastes like an innocent version of mulled apple juice!), and while I’m not really a fan, Mummy loves a good cup of Blackberry & Elderflower.
Sometime before Christmas happened the team behind the tea offered to send me the whole range so I could try out the flavours I have not had a chance to. Peppermint is lovely and fresh, and the Chamomile & Vanilla does have a lovely sweet vanilla note to it: I’ve given the box away, however, because I don’t really like the chamomile part of it! I’ll keep you posted on the Lemongrass & Ginger and how it holds up to my own homemade version. I’m sorry to say it is still sitting in its box, waiting for me to get in the mood for something with a bit of zing. Maybe one of these afternoons when I’m frozen stiff arriving home from an afternoon spent out on the lake, rather than (or in addition to) my usual bowl of miso soup?
I’m not going to give you a full recipe for avocado toast. I know none of you are stupid, so I don’t want to state the obvious. I like to roast my tomatoes the day I buy my avocados, to eat for breakfast the next day. Let us be honest here, ‘ready to eat’ avocados from the supermarket are never ‘ready to eat’. Half a packet of cherry tomatoes (for 2 mornings of toast) and toss them with a little extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper on a metal baking tray, and roast in a pre-heated 150 degrees (375 fahrenheit) oven for about an hour to an hour and a half until the tomatoes have roasted, and are starting to shrivel just a little. If you cook on an AGA like me, you just need to throw them onto the top wrack in the bottom warming oven, and forget about them for an hour or two. Allow to cool to room temperature and store in an airtight container in the fridge. Make your avocado toast with brown bread (trust me, it does taste better in this instance, made with plenty of seeds if you can find it. Squeeze a little fresh lemon juice and season with sea salt (always fleur de sel with avocado) and black pepper over the avocado toasts before topping with the tomatoes and their juices.
What have you been eating for breakfast recently? Aside from avocado toast, I’ve recently been on somewhat of a smoothie kick, helped along by some of the recipes in Rachel de Thample’s new book FIVE which her publishers sent me at the beginning of the week. More on that soon, but for now if you’re after some more breakfast inspiration check out my recipes for Forced Rhubarb & Cardamom Breakfast Compote (in season right now), Labneh with Olive Oil and Za’atar (perfect on hot toast) and Green Eggs & Ham (inspired by a dish at Santa Monica’s Huckleberry Cafe).
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