Italian Stuffed Tomatoes

• porcije: 6 servings
• aktivno vrijeme: 20 minutes
• ukupno vrijeme: 1 hour 45 minutes

Sastojci

6 large tomatoes heirloom

1/2 pound ground beef (lean)

1/2 cup white rice (medium grain)

3 cloves garlic (pressed)

1/2 onion (finely diced)

1/3 cup parsley (chopped)

1/4 cup basil (chopped)

1/2 cup asiago cheese (shredded)

to taste salt and pepper

5 tbsp olive oil

Upute

Preheat the oven to 325 F.

Cut off the top of each tomato, creating a 'lid'. Put a fine mesh strainer over a bowl, and use your fingers to carefully scoop the seeds out of the tomatoes into the strainer. Push on the seeds to get all of the juice, then discard the seeds.

Use a spoon to scoop out most of the flesh from the tomatoes, then chop that up and add to the tomato juice.

Put the beef and rice in a large bowl, add the garlic, onion, parsley, basil, cheese and the tomato pieces and liquid. Add 2 1/2 tbsp of the olive oil, salt and pepper, and mix together well.

Fill the tomatoes with the meat filling and arrange in a casserole dish. Top each tomato with its lid and drizzle with the remaining olive oil.

Bake for about 1 hour 15 minutes, or until the tomatoes are soft and the rice is cooked.

Let stand for about 15 minutes before serving.

Bilješke

When choosing the tomatoes, make sure to choose the ripest ones that are firm, as the softer ones may fall apart after 1 hour of baking, leaving you with sloppy stuffed tomatoes.

Do not scrape every last bit of tomato pulp from its shell. Use a melon baller or small spoon to remove the pulp, but make sure to not puncture or break the shell.

Choose heirloom tomatoes of similar shape and size. The bigger, the better!

Once the stuffed tomatoes are cooked through, bake them for 10 minutes topped with mozzarella cheese or more asiago cheese until the cheese has melted.

Prehrana

• Kalorije: 328 kcal
• Ukupno masti: 22 g
• Zasićene masti: 6 g
• Trans masti: 1 g
• Kolesterol: 33 mg
• Natrij: 171 mg
• Ukupni ugljikohidrati: 21 g
• Dijetalna vlakna: 3 g
• Ukupni šećeri: 5 g
• Proteini: 12 g