Romaine Pesto Stuffed Tomatoes

I love experimenting with different foods. I tend to find a recipe and change it about 50% to make it my own. I think that's the way you learn to cook, you find a base, and you change it all if you can. You add what you want, take out things you don't and just find what works for you. The one thing that was interesting about this meal is that it involved tomatoes. I don't really like store bought tomatoes. I refuse to eat them most of the year, until we can grow and harvest are own. The ones from our backyard are just way too good and I miss them. But, I decided to give this recipe a chance and take the plunge and buy tomatoes. 

I am growing some romaine lettuce now, but they are still in the dirt, growing and waiting to make their appearance, so I had to buy a head of romaine, even though I only used about 6 leaves. I will make a salad with the rest of it this week for lunch. We grew a ton of different greens last year: three types of lettuce (each with three plants per type), collards, kale, chard. Our garden was flourishing and so delicious. The basil to the right of the lettuce in the picture above is still growing in our sun room, and it smells so good!

I don't really like pesto all that much. I think it's just too much basil. So I decided to try a romain pesto. It's essentially the same thing, but so much better. I added a little bit of cheese to it to add a little punch, and boy howdy, did it make a difference. With 5 cloves of garlic, I am sure that helped too. But honestly, I will never make normal pesto again. This will be used in pastas from now on!

We were doing spring cleaning Saturday, since my partner was suffering from an allergy attack from the juniper pollen. Because we were spring cleaning, I wanted to eat spring based foods! Tomatoes are finally looking some-what appealing, the chickens are laying eggs (or at least, my boss's chickens are laying eggs, which he is graciously giving us some), and pesto just reminds me of spring. I don't really remember what type of tomatoes I bought, but they needed to be bigger and rounder than romas. These were the only ones I could find at our health food store, and they did the trick. Although, I would recommend buying bigger ones, since the egg did spill over. 

 

This was a great, easy, and healthy meal to make. I ended up making six last minute, but I still have left over pesto. I am sure if you only want to make 4, you could use 4 pieces of lettuce and it will do you just fine.

Romaine Pesto Stuffed Tomatoes

6 large rounded tomatoes (3-4 inches in diameter)

6 leaves of romaine lettuce

5 cloves of garlic

4-5 leaves of fresh basil

1/4 c. cheese, if using

1/4 c. extra virgin olive oil

6 eggs at room temperature

Salt and Pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Clean tomatoes, lettuce, and basil well, and pat dry. Rip romaine lettuce in 2-3 inch pieces. 

In a food processor, finely chop the garlic. Add romaine lettuce and basil to food processor. Once everything is evenly cut, add cheese. Give it a quick pulse until it's mixed in, and with the motor still running, slowing add the oil. Do a little taste test and add some salt and pepper. Set aside.

Cut the tomato tops about 1/8 inch from top, and cut a little bit from the bottom so the tomato stands up straight without slipping around. Carefully scrape out the pulp and seeds with a spoon and discard them. Put the tomatoes in an oiled 8x8 backing dish, cut side up. 

Take about 1 tablespoon of the romaine pesto and place inside the tomatoes. Once all tomatoes are filled, crack an egg into each tomato and season with salt and pepper. Bake eggs in tomatoes until the whites are set and yolks are still runny*. About 20 minutes.

*I over cooked some of the eggs yolks, and some not so much. I think the bigger tomatoes will help evenly distribute the egg whites a bit more. Since these were quite small, it took awhile for the eggs whites to set, which in turn, over cooked the yolk. The wider the tomatoes, the better!