Baked Tomatoes Stuffed with Rice, Zucchini and Broad Beans

These tasty stuffed tomatoes look fiddly but take surprisingly very little time to make. They're a delicious combination of crunchy baked on the top and deliciously juicy inside. They make a perfect (and very healthy) dinner with a salad or vegies on the side. When we had this (pictured above) I just made a basic salad of lettuce, tomato, cucumber, avocado, olives and continental parsley drizzled with olive oil, balsamic vinegar and then sprinkled with some sumac. They went together perfectly.

Ingredients:

6 large round tomatoes

1/2 cup long grain rice

1 cup shelled fresh broad beans (substitute frozen if fresh is unavailable)

1 onion, finely diced

3 cloves garlic, finely diced

1 zucchini, grated coarsely

1 tbsp soy sauce

1 tsp dried Italian herb mix

Salt and Pepper

Olive Oil

To Make:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.

2. Bring a pot of water to the boil and add the rice and broad beans. Simmer for 15 minutes or until the rice is cooked through. Then drain and rinse thoroughly.

3. While your rice is cooking away prepare your tomatoes. Cut a wide hole in the top of each one (like carving a pumpkin to make a lantern) and discard the top bit (and by discard I mean give it to your guinea pig). Scoop out the contents of each tomato and put aside.

4. Heat a drizzle of olive oil in a pan and sauté the onions until soft. Add the grated zucchini and garlic and sauté until softened. Chop the tomato middle bits up and add to the pan. Turn down low and simmer gently.

5. Pick the broad beans out of the rice and put aside (if you don't want to have to do this you can cook them in a separate saucepan but I just use the same one to save washing up). Peel the broad beans (just make a little cut or tear in the wrinkly outer skin and then just squeeze gently and the bean will pop out). Cut each bean in half.

6. Add the rice, broad beans, herbs, soy sauce and salt and pepper to the pan. Stir well and heat through.

7. Fill each tomato as full as you can with the rice mixture and place upright in a slightly oiled baking dish. You will have a bit of mix left over (unless you managed to find awesomely huge tomatoes in which case kudos) but just eat that while you're waiting for them to bake :)

8. Bake for 20 minutes, turning the dish around about half way through. Serve with a salad or some vegies on the side.

Makes 6 tomatoes so serves 3 adults (or 2 adults and 2 kids).