Lunch Less Ordinary Challenge: Stuffed Tomatoes

At last! Drum roll please. The Stuffed Tomatoes have been made! and may I say they are totally delicious too! Last week, we stepped up to the Lunch Less Ordinary challenge of making a week's worth of lunches featuring tomatoes in each and every one of them. And as a quick reminder, here they all are...


We promised we'd make stuffed tomatoes, and we keep our promises. To be honest, they don't take too long to make. It really is down to just preparing the mind.
Prep time is just 20 minutes, if you boil up the kettle, get the rice on cooking whilst you prep the big fat tomatoes. Then oven time is another 25-30mins, depending on your oven.

So, following Delia's recipe, taken from my ancient "Complete Illustrated Cookery Course":

Turkish Stuffed Tomatoes
serves 4-8 people

Ingredients:

8 really large ripe tomatoes
Italian rice, (the risotto rice) measure to 5 oz (150ml) in a measuring jug
1 small onion, finely chopped
olive oil
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tbs currants
275ml chicken stock
1 tsp fresh thyme
some sugar
salt and pepper to season

Method:
Pre-heat oven to 180C.
Cook the rice first, or at least get that going, before preparing the tomatoes.
Fry the chopped onion in the olive oil, until softened. Add the garlic, and pour in the rice. Keep the heat on low. Add the cinnamon, pine nuts, currants. Stir everything well and ensure you coat each grain of rice.
Season with salt and pepper and pour in the hot stock. Stir once. Pop the lid on, and let it simmer for 15-20 minutes or until the liquid has been absorbed and the rice soft, and tender.
Remove the rice from the heat, add the thyme and fluff the rice with a skewer or fork.
Whilst the rice is cooking, start to prepare the tomatoes. Slice off the round end and scoop out all the seeds and core. Try to leave as much of the flesh as possible. Pop in a pinch of sugar in each tomato. Then spoon in the rice mixture to each tomato. Pop the lid of each tomato back on. Place each tomato into a meat roasting tin with a little water at the bottom and a drizzle of olive oil over each one.
Bake for 25-30 minutes. Eat hot or cold.
We served these up with lambs lettuce salad and a chunk of bread to mop up the juices.



As it was just the four of us, we baked five and I kept one back for my lunch today! Fun Friday and all!
Perfect microwaved warm and eaten with ryvita - the pumpkin seeds ones are my favourites at the moment.

So, a perfect veggie option and ideal for using up tomatoes and using store cupboard items.

What's your favourite recipe with tomatoes?

The Lunchbox Lady x

Disclaimer: we are one of the specially chosen foodie bloggers to take part in the Lunch Less Ordinary Challenge by Mission Deli Wraps.