Beauty Kitchen: roast tomatoes to protect your skin
You know what? I’m growing to love this Beauty Kitchen feature more by the days. I had initially thought I might just cover it like once or twice a month but it just looks like it might be more regular than I’ve anticipated because it’s actually helping me to rediscover cooking all over again! Like making this dish for example. I’m more of a Chinese food lover so western style of cooking hardly appeals to me. Yet, I managed to whip up this simple roasted tomato salad and I love it!
Helps protect against UV damage
I’ve always love tomatoes and in 2008, I wrote an entry introducing you to the benefits of eating tomatoes to protect against the harmful UV rays. Tomatoes contain plenty of nutrients and are a great source of vitamins A, B, C & K. They also contain the potent free-radical scavenging phytonutrient lycopene and recent studies have revealed that lycopene may pack twice the punch of the well-known antioxidant beta-carotene which is known to protect our skin against sun damage.
Cooked tomatoes have higher lycopene content
Eating fresh tomatoes are good but apparently, cooked tomatoes or tomato paste are great too because according to an article at Cornell, heat processing actually enhanced the nutritional value of tomatoes by increasing the lycopene content.
Recipe
Preparing this dish is very easy although it takes slightly longer to roast the tomatoes. These are the ingredients:
– chopped garlic
– 4 tomatoes, sliced to quarters
– 1 potato, sliced to quarters
– 1 carrot, sliced
– Italian herbs
– 1 tablespoon of olive oil
Preparation & cooking method
Boil the cut potato and carrot for 10 minutes. Then preheat the oven at 240°C. Mix the garlic on the cut tomatoes, potato and carrot. Sprinkle the herbs & drizzle the olive oil over the food. Place the prepared food items in a single layer on a baking tray and leave it in the preheated oven to roast for 30 minutes, checking occasionally to ensure that they do not burn. Once the tomatoes are shriveled with brown spots and the potatoes start to look brown, they’re ready to be eaten.
Serve hot
This dish is best eaten when it’s served piping hot from the oven. It’s delicious and may I add, very filling too. And the tomatoes are great for your skin!
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that looks very yummy!! ? the tomatoes would be better if you slow roast at 150 degree celsius for an hour! it’d be concentrated and really full of flavour! I like to roast pumpkin too. You should try it out. Or stir fry pumpkin in mince meat sauce chinese style!
Oh my, this looks tasty! I swear my tummy is making weird sounds as I type this comment!
I love roasting or sauteing tomatoes with herbs, too. They go very well with quinoa grains. And I love roasted pumpkins. Slightly mashed Pumpkin + herbs + turmeric powder tastes very good, too!
so mouthwatering receipe…i love tomatoes but i have alwayz thoght that raw tomatoes are more beneficial so i try to always include one tomato in my salad..wasnt knowing about the cooked tomatoes benefits..i am going to make this tonight..thanks for sharing
Definitely trying this one! thanks for sharing, Sesame! ?
Looks so yummy! It’s good for health/skin and easy to prepare too. I’ll make this soon. Thanks for the recipe!
I do eat one tomato everyday but instead of roasting, I will boil the tomato in soup. Hmmm…I have not seen any improvment yet, or maybe if i dont eat, my complexion might get worse.
=D Nice one. I love tomatoes too, especially cherry tomatoes. You can actually make a tomato only dish by using different sizes and colours.
The best way to reap the benefits is to heat it just a bit by throwing tomatoes in at the very end of cooking, be it toasting/oven, boil or stir fry. As long as it gets hot, the skin don’t wrinkle, the nutrients would have been released.
However, according to Taiwan Kevin-laoshi, if you heat it, you can forget about the Vitamin C, which is heat-destructible.
Slow roast at 150? Okay, I’ll give it a try next time. Actually I was griping this takes long but I would love the taste to be more concentrated. Oh I’ve never eaten pumpkin. Not sure if I like the taste but I might give it a try since a number of you like it.
I used to think they’re better eaten fresh too until I researched about them in 2008. Since then, I eat all my cooked tomatoes cos I sometimes just drink the soup if I throw in the tomatoes.
I just read about quinoa grains today. Your pumpkin recipe sounds yummy…will like to give it a try soon.
You’re welcome! Hope you’ll enjoy it when you try this.
Yes, I like that too. I cook them with fish in soup. Since you take consistently, it’s probably helping you…your skin is quite good what. Heheh.
Oh using different sizes of tomatoes…that’s interesting!
Yeah, I’m sure vitamin C is gone…in fact I was surprised to learn that cooking will increase the lycopene content…and more surprising to learn that tomato sauce has got benefits for the skin too.
You’re welcome Lucia! Hope you’ll love it like I do. ?
Thanks. 😘
Now you make me want to roast some tomatoes for dinner. I have like more than 1kg of them in the fridge now. The dish looks so yummy!
But I am boiling 1kg of potatoes now…to be eaten with smoked salmon for dinner….. ?
Hope your dinner was yummy. Maybe tomatoes tonight?
I really like this Beauty Kitchen section! It’s a great initiative on your part and I can’t wait to hear more from you ? the thing about beauty – especially for younger women like myself who are just starting out – is that we associate it with products and things to slather on our faces or lather up over our bodies. I’ve been thinking a lot about what I put into my body – the foundation of beauty is good health and that is the sum of what we put into our bodies. In this quick-fix world I’ve been born into it is very easy to forget about the slow but real effects of daily nourishment. Thank you for being so mindful and generous with your wisdom!
ah! I’m a fan of using the oven to bake food cuz it’s quit fuss-free. Gotta remember to throw in tomatoes too then!
I love to slice up some bell peppers (the vibrant colours are supposed to be indicative of high anti-oxidant levels) and cook it for 45min or so with potatoes and carrots. Peppers are usually sharp when eaten raw, but oven-roasted peppers are really sweet! It even converted my vegetable-skeptic boyfriend d=
some professional chefs do it at like 100 for 5-6 hours. but i’ll never have that kind of patience. Pumpkin is really good for you! Really nice and sweet. And mushy when well roasted. It’s somewhat like sweet potato but much softer!
Eating out is really unhealthy with all the oil, salt, spice, and whatnot. I hope I could cook something like this for my lunchbox. But that means I will have to prepare it the night before and reheat it the following day (less fresh that way). I swear I wouldn’t get up early every morning just to prepare my lunchbox ?
I can never prepare my lunchbox! No time. Fastest is a sandwich. But maybe I should think of some simple ideas. I have a colleague who does it cos she is on a special diet. But then again, she has a maid to help her.
IOh like sweet potatoes? I love! Will give it a try soon. Thanks for sharing! ?
I am not so keen on bell peppers but do throw in some when we’re baking chicken. They do taste fine when eaten in moderation…can’t eat too much of them. But they’re great skin food too!
Sesame! Just slow roasted half a dozen tomatoes as your reader, Claire, suggested! I put them in the oven before taking my daughter to ballet class and came back an hour later to a yummy lunch! Just finished savoring them! ?
I skipped the potatoes, as I will only eat potatoes once a week!
So it was just tomatoes, Italian herbs, fresh basil and loads of garlic! Salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil. Then, I garnish it with even more fresh basil before nom-ing on them! ?
Glad you made a wonderful meal with the roasted tomatoes. I love this…think I forgot to mention about adding some salt to taste in the recipe. I didn’t use pepper though. Definitely making this one frequently! ?
it looks so yummy!!! I didn’t know that cooked tomatoes have higher lycopene but I do like grilled tomatoes…will surely try this ?
You will probably like it. ?
ha, during my grocery shopping at NTUC today, the first thing I picked for my cart was tomatoes!! cos I’m sooooo going to try this recipe!! ? but will probably use the slow-roast method recommended by other readers. And I might serve them on a bed of lettuce to add the greens ? — wow, super healthy and nutritious!!!
Oh you’ll love this! I am eating this quite regularly now! ?