Quinoa Stuffed Tomatoes
So I'm on this little health kick and am really trying to focus on changing the way I eat. When I wrote out my menus for the week, I chose to make stuffed tomatoes tonight. But I wanted an alternative to the white rice, and I don't really like brown rice.
I had heard of quinoa before so did a little research on it since I thought the quinoa would be the perfect substitute for white rice. Then I asked around in a cooking chat room I frequent, and got a lot of positive responses, including a response from this cook who used quinoa in her stuffed peppers. So I gave it a shot tonight and am glad I did - quinoa is really good!
When making stuffed tomatoes or peppers I just throw ingredients together instead of following a recipe. Here are some tomatoes I made a few months ago. Of course these could be made with real ground meat which is why I also gave this post a beef tag.
This is what I did tonight -
- Hollow out tomatoes and set in a baking dish
- Cook quinoa: rinse quinoa a few times then put 1/2 cup of it into a pot with 1 cup of water. Bring to a boil then lower to a simmer for about 10-15 minutes until the water is absorbed.
- In the meantime, heat about 1 tbsp olive oil in a large pan. Add some chopped onion, chopped green pepper, and chopped garlic; saute. Add ground meat (I used MorningStar Farms Recipe Crumbles, fake ground meat). Add spices; I used red pepper flakes, salt, pepper, a pinch of oregano and some parsley flakes. Add about 1/4 cup of tomato sauce.
- Once the meat mixture is cooked, combine it with the quinoa.
- Fill each tomato with the mixture. Cook on 350 for 15-20 minutes.
- Top each tomato with some Parmesan cheese and put them under the broiler for a few minutes.
Here is a closeup of the meat-quinoa mixture.
