Sweet Cherry Tomato and Sausage Bake

It was T's birthday, and I asked him to pick a recipe that he'd like me to make for his birthday dinner. Of course, he picked something from Jamie Oliver - his favourite, and my nemesis. Okay, it may be a bit strong to say nemesis. I do like Jamie's FOOD after all. I just have a hard time following his recipes. But really, I should give it another shot. I don't have too much to base my opinion on.

As I read over the ingredient list and recipe, I think to myself that T has chosen (perhaps deliberately) something that actually seems easy and dare I say, quick, to prepare. There are not many ingredients to it and the procedure seems rather straightforward, if not exactly the itemized list of steps that I prefer to work with. All I need is cherry tomatoes, herbs, sausages and some seasonings. Off I go to the store.

Jamie asks for 4 and 1/4 pounds of cherry tomatoes. The kind of cherry tomatoes I am looking for (the ones with varied colours and sizes) come in clamshell containers of about 8 oz. each. I punch 4.5 (just to be sure) into the Conversion App in my iPhone and it says that I need 72 ounces - that's NINE containers of cherry tomatoes. Seems like a lot to me, but I don't like to question amounts in recipes that I have never tried... especially from gurus like Jamie Oliver.

The directions said, "Get yourself an appropriately sized roasting pan, large enough to take all the tomatoes in one snug-fitting layer." As I started washing the tomatoes I realized that I did not have a pan to fit all of them. In fact, I only ended up using HALF the amount of tomatoes that Jamie said to use. Sheesh! Good thing we like tomatoes in our house.

Anyways, I didn't have a pan that would take them all, so I ended up choosing to use a 9x13 clear-glass casserole dish. Turns out that was a mistake. After you cook the tomatoes, herbs & sausages, you are supposed to reduce the sauce down a little bit. Jamie says to "lift the sausages out and place the pan on the stove," which I did. However, T informed me - in a rather panicked tone of voice - that you are not supposed to place glass on direct heat and could I please get it off the stove right now!!

Oops. Well, no harm done. See what I mean about not having that intuition in the kitchen?

Anyways. The dish was really yummy - we both loved it. We had, as a treat, white Italian bread to mop up the sauce. It was delicious! We score 10/10 for taste (T says it's the best thing I have ever made), and I would give it... 9/10 for ease of preparation. Definitely going to have this one again - soon!