No Fish...No Problem

Sunday, my dad and brother were at a motorcycle safety course. I'm not too thrilled about motorcycles, but I guess I'd rather them have been to this course than not! Anyway, that meant that after church mama and I were on our own for lunch. We had planned to get fish and broil it. Our favorite is tilapia (and I like flounder as well). Anyway, I got to Kroger and their lights had gone out. Thus, they couldn't sell produce, meats, fish, and something else. So...I went to the other grocery in town and looked at their fish. Fresh fish wasn't too appetizing and the only other fish was catfish. I had just had it last weekend and didn't want that flavor fish so, I went home empty handed. I offered Mama eggs but we just decided to have veggies, fruit, and bread. It was a yummy summer lunch.

I decided to try a new recipe provided by a beloved friend, Mrs. Jackie. She THINKS that she can't cook, and has made a cookbook of tried and true recipes that she gives to special friends at graduation. I was a blessed recipient of one of these books. One of the recipes is for Provencal Tomatoes (from the Barefoot Contessa Family Style). Since Mama loves tomatoes and the boys were gone, I knew this would be a prime time to try the recipe. Can I just say delicious! Try it out while the tomatoes are ripe and in their prime!

Provencal Tomatoes
6 ripe tomatoes (2 1/2 -3 inches in diameter)
1 1/2 cups fresh white bread crumbs (5 slices) *I used homemade wheat bread
2 scallions, white and green parts
1/4 cup minced fresh basil leaves
2 T minced fresh flat-leaf parsley
2 t. minced garlic (2 cloves)
1/2 t. minced fresh thyme leaves
Kosher salt
fresh ground pepper
1/2 cup grated Gruyere cheese *I used cheddar and Parmesan as that is what I had.
Olive oil (forgot this part)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Cut the cores from the tomatoes removing as little as possible. Cut them in half crosswise and, with fingers, remove the seeds and juice (I ended up quartering the tomatoes because I didn't want too much tomato in one bite. This worked great!). Place tomato in baking dish.

In a bowl, combine bread crumbs, scallions (sliced), basil, parsley, garlic, thye, and 1 t salt. Sprinkle the tomato halves with salt and pepper. With your hands fill the caviites and cover the tops of the tomatoes with bread crumb mixture. Bake tomatoes 15 minutes or until they are tender. Sprinkle wiht cheese, drizzle with olive oil, and bake for 30 seconds more.

Serve hot or at room temperature. NOTE: I used all dried herbs because I didn't have fresh. Although fresh would be better, dried works just fine!

THis was a delicious dish and went well with the rest of lunch: roasted zucchini, peaches, watermelon, and wheat bread. YUM!

Check out Sweetnicks for ARF Tuesday! This is my entry, and there will be many other GREAT recipes!