Roasted Tomatoes and Cipollini

I got this recipe off of a food blog that I recently discovered and absolutely love called Smitten Kitchen. This dish is highly addictive and is also one that gets better the next day as leftovers. I used plum tomatoes but I know I would prefer using cherry tomatoes next time. You could also substitute the cipollini onions for shallots cut into quarters.

Roasted Tomatoes and Cipollini

Serves four as a small dish, two as a main

1 pound cipollini onions
1 pound small Roma or large cherry tomatoes
1/4 cup olive oil
Coarse salt
4 slices of country or ciabatta bread, one-inch thick
1 15-ounce can of white beans, drained and rinsed or 1 1/2 cups cooked beans of your choice

3 tablespoons of balsamic
Garlic clove (optional)
Few fresh basil leaves, slivered

Preheat oven to 375°F. Boil a small pot of water and blanche the cipollini for 10 seconds, then plunging them into cold water. Use a paring knife to make a small slit in each, and slide them out of their skins and outer layer.

Spread peeled onions and tomatoes in a roasting pan. Drizzle with olive oil and a few good pinches of coarse salt. Toss everything together until well-coated and roast in preheated oven for about 45 minutes, reaching in every 15 minutes with a spatula to roll the tomatoes and onions around to ensure all sides get blistered.

Just before you take the tomatoes and onions out, place your bread slices on the oven rack and let them toast lightly. You can rub the toasts with a halved garlic clove, if you like, while still hot. Use tongs to arrange toasts in one layer on a serving platter. Toss the beans with balsamic and dump the white beans over the bread, and using a pot holder, scrape the entire contents of the tomato-and-onion roasting pan, still hot, over the white beans.

Sprinkle the dish with the basil and eat at once.