TWENTY : HERB-STUFFED TOMATOES

PLENTY

OCTOBER 21 2012

TWENTY : HERB-STUFFED TOMATOES

TOMATOES! I have so many tomatoes! What to do with them? There's no possible way to eat them all before they go bad. Especially since I don't really like fresh tomatoes. I know most people think raw tomatoes are sweet and luscious, but I find them rather bitter and most of the big, beefy ones have an off-putting ammonia aroma. I do enjoy the occasional BLT and, admittedly, did enthusiastically devour Mr. O's Marinated Mozzarella & Tomato salad last month. But mostly I prefer my tomatoes cooked and could slurp down tomato soups or pasta sauce all day long. I mean I seriously still dream about Frankie's slow-simmered Sunday Sauce and will undoubtedly be making another big batch sometime this winter.

tomato overload! still figuring out what to do with the green ones. pickles, perhaps?

In the meantime, I still have to do something with all the tomatoes slowly over-ripening on the kitchen counter. Last year, I spent multiple weekends blanching, peeling and food milling the abundance to make a variety of sauces for pasta and enchiladas. Then finally got sick of it all and just started quartering and freezing them into small portions, without even skinning or seeding first. These turned out to be the most coveted item in my freezer and were all used up way before I'd made even a small dent in all those fancy sauces. So this year, I'm putting up most of the excess tomatoes this way. So easy and then they're available for any use. If needed, I can easily run them through a food mill once defrosted but usually don't even bother and just dump them straight from the freezer bag into the soup or chili or whatever I'm making.

But I knew I wanted to make these stuffed tomatoes from my home grown supply so made sure to save the roundest, plumpest ones for dinner tonight. This dish is really quite simple. Just saute onions and black olives until softened. Meanwhile, remove the core from the tomatoes (I froze the guts for later use in a soup or something), season with salt and pepper and let drain while you finish the stuffing. The onions are mixed together with panko breadcrumbs, fresh herbs and chopped capers. After gently drying the insides of the tomatoes, they are packed full of the stuffing then baked until soft, about 40 minutes. Done!

Served alongside fresh-caught wild salmon slathered with huckleberry sauce, these tomatoes were awesome. The fresh herbs were bright and fresh against the salty olives and the tomatoes themselves had become meltingly tender. I would definitely make this again!