In Our Kitchen: Tomato Cobbler

If you mention that you're making a cobbler, the first thing people will think of is fruit and often it will be peach or apple. But tomatoes love biscuits, too, (and, after all, they're technically a fruit). Recipes that take a traditionally sweet dish and turn things savory always appeal to me.

I was inspired to make this recipe for a certain friend who loves tomatoes, but all my brunch friends loved it. Cheesy biscuits on top of blistered sweet tomatoes mingling with caramelized onions and garlic? Not a bad way to kick off a Sunday. This will be one to make every season until the cherry tomatoes are gone.

I reduced the cooking time by quite a bit from the original recipe, and I assembled the tomato-onion mixture in the baking dish to save us all from another bowl to wash. If you're serving a crowd, it's easy enough to make two of these and bake them at the same time. I cooked double the amount of onions and garlic in one big pan and then divided the mixture between the dishes.

For color and variety, I used red and sweet yellow cherry tomatoes, but feel free to use whatever cherry or grape tomatoes you can get your hands on. I forgot to add herbs before popping the baking dishes into the oven, but I bet thyme would be a great addition. We are big fans of garlic at my house, so I added a couple of extra cloves. A friend added chopped bacon in with the tomatoes, a variation I can definitely get behind. The next time someone offers up cobbler, hope it's tomato.

Ileana Morales is a writer living in St. Petersburg with fiance Danny Valentine, a reporter for the Tampa Bay Times. For more of their kitchen stories, visit Ileana's blog, alittlesaffron.com. Contact her at alittlesaffron@gmail.com.