Last week I ended up with 25lbs of tomatoes on my hands. They were leftovers from an event and I just couldn’t say no. I mean, big, red, fresh, sweet tomatoes. Yes, 25lbs may seem a bit too much for a family of four but I figured I either try to cook with them or they end up in the trash, and I don’t like to trash good healthy ingredients, so I took the whole case and was now left with the challenge of making something with the tomatoes.
The first thing that comes to mind is Pizza sauce. Easy. You make it, freeze it, and use it when you need it. Bur really, if I had to eat pizzas with sauce from 25lbs of tomatoes I would probably need to replace the door in our house. I wanted something different, fresh. So the first thing I did was stuffed tomatoes. True, stuffed tomatoes do not look as sexy as you would think in a photo 🙂 but hey, they were delicious.
Also, I stuffed them with couscous so really, the process was very fast and unique – just the way I like it. And now, I need to think faster because tomatoes, apparently, don’t live forever.
- 4 medium size tomatoes (not too soft - preferably firm)
- ⅓ cup Couscous
- ⅓ cup Warm Water
- ½ Zucchini – Grated
- ¼ Bell Pepper – Chopped
- 1 tbsp Chopped Parsley
- 2 tsp Tomato Paste
- 1 Garlic Clove – Chopped
- ½ tsp Ground Cumin
- Salt and Pepper to taste
- 2 cups Hot Water
- 4 tbsp Tomato Paste
- 3 Garlic Cloves – Diced
- Cut the top off each tomato and using a teaspoon carve the inside, leaving a hollow tomato (leave about 1cm thick tomato walls)
- In a bowl, place couscous and ⅓ cup water, mix and let stand for 5 minutes
- Once couscous is ready, add zucchini, pepper, parsley, tomato paste, garlic, cumin, salt and pepper and mix until combined.
- Stuff each tomato with the couscous mix (the filling). Each tomato should be about ¾ full with stuffing.
- Place the stuffed tomatoes in a cooking pot (make sure it is not too big and that you can fit 4 tomatoes in)
- In a separate bowl, mix sauce ingredients and using a ladle pour sauce between the tomatoes. You can also pour a little bit on top of the tomatoes but only about ¼ ladle max on each tomato.
- Cover pot with lid and cook everything over medium-low heat for about 25-30 minutes.
