Stuffed Tomatoes

Have you ever noticed that many winter meals are quite heavy?  Perhaps it's the desire to have something that will stick to our bones when braving the elements.  Or the temptation of having a plate of piping hot food to warm us from the inside out.  When autumn first begins, it's exciting to dust off all the stew and slow-cooked roast recipes.  But as these cold months drag on, our palates rebel and demand something else even though a light salad when it's 10 degrees outside just isn't going to cut it.  Enter the best of both worlds: stuffed tomatoes!

If you go healthy and avoid carbs when choosing what to stuff the tomatoes with, this dish is essentially the equivalent of a salad - just hot.  You can pretty much put anything you want in there since everything is cooked separately at first.  We opted for Italian chicken sausage and kale.  Then we loosely followed Sunny Anderson's Stuffed Tomatoes recipe to prep the tomatoes properly and know the best cooking time and temperature.

Step 1:  Slice the top off each tomato and take out the guts.  We found that a fruit/veggie corer really did the trick because you can scrape the walls of the tomato without having to worry about poking holes in the bottom.

Step 2: Sprinkle the inside of the tomatoes with salt, flip them over on a plate and let them sit to drain some water.  This step is very important.  One time we thought we could skip it and the whole dish was a soggy mess.

Step 3:  While the tomatoes are sitting, sautee up the sausage and kale (or your stuffing of choice).  We threw in some of the tomato guts for a little extra zip of fun flavor.  Season with whatever spices you enjoy.

Step 4:  Put your stuffing into the tomatoes and place in the oven at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes, or until the tomato starts to brown and soften a bit.  You can even sprinkle some cheese on top if you're in the mood!

Step 5:  Eat up your hot salad!  We enjoyed it with a side of roasted asparagus, but the beauty of these babies is that really anything goes.  And they're not soup or stew... again...  Is it spring yet?