Monday, August 26 Stuffed Tomatoes and Roasted Tomato, Zucchini and Onion Medley Rating: Mixed

About a week or so ago, Seth posted this pic & recipe to my Facebook wall and asked if we could make them. They look good, don’t they? Well, the recipe seemed simple enough, and since tomato season is coming to a close, I though I’d better give it a try while the best heirlooms are still around. Seth hates mushrooms, so I left out the portobello, but I think some nice baked tofu would be a good stand in for it. Anyway, I was a little worried that they wouldn’t hold up since heirlooms are so much softer than other tomatoes, but I picked up a couple of nice, big, beautiful heirloom tomatoes at the farmer’s market. I made a half batch since the recipe is written for four tomatoes and there are only two of us. Even without the mushroom, the half batch of filling looked like an awful lot, and the tomatoes I was using were pretty big. I filled them up, but had filling left over.  I went ahead and put them in the oven with the other dish even though the temperatures for cooking were different. That was probably a lot of the problem. When I took them out of the oven, they looked done, and as expected, the tomatoes were starting to come apart. Trouble was, the filling wasn’t cooked at all. In fact, it was barely warm. I think if the onions and celery were sautéed before going in the tomatoes, this would have been good. It also really needed some more seasoning, like thyme. Seth liked it and ate his all up, but I gave up trying to muscle through mine about halfway through. Now, to the good stuff – the potatoes, zucchini and onions. This is also a recipe from the Friends of Animals book, Dining with Friends. It’s so easy and so good. Several red potatoes, one zucchini and a couple of onions. We have a lot of both red and purple potatoes right now, so I used a mix of those. This one is a nice, simple side that tastes like it was a lot more work than it was. It would be great alongside some baked tofu or tempeh.