Stuffed heirloom tomatoes and red onions

Finally the weekend is here and time to write a blog post again. I was quite busy this week, so now I just want to relax and eat well. The weather is too interchangeable to make any outdoor plans, so I think I will be cooking and possibly baking. Today's recipe is for stuffed heirloom tomatoes (regular tomatoes will also do, if you can't get heirlooms) and red onions. I stuffed them with a pearled spelt mix that was prepared in risotto fashion. Have a look how easy it is!

Please note that the onion and tomato amounts can vary depending on the size, mine were pretty much medium size.

6-8 red onions

4 heirloom tomatoes

3 garlic cloves

1tsp vegetable oil

1tbsp olive oil

25g butter

1tbsp vegetable stock powder + 1l water

1 cup pearled spelt

200ml white wine

1tbsp sage leaves

50g emmental

1tsp salt

1tsp black pepper

Peel the onions and hollow them out by leaving about 2 layers of onion as a shell. The hollowing out should be doable by removing the lid, making couple of cuts into the middle of the onion and then by scooping the insides out with a spoon. Just take care that you don't pierce through the outer shell. Place the onion shells in an oven dish and brush them inside and out with vegetable oil. Cover with foil and bake at 180C for about 30 minutes.

Prepare the vegetable stock and warm it up. Wash the heirloom tomatoes and also hollow them out, keep the insides and the lids for later. Place them in another oven dish, brush with olive oil and set to side. There's no need to pre-bake these as tomatoes cook fairly quickly.

Start preparing the stuffing: Chop the onion insides and garlic finely and cook them in olive oil until soft. Add the butter, pearled spelt and after a while the wine. This method of making the stuffing is just like risotto (or speltotto) making.

Once the wine has nearly evaporated, add couple of ladles of the warm vegetable stock and let the stuffing simmer under lid. Add the tomato insides to the pan. Keep adding more stock, don't let the pan get dry, and stir often. Repeat this until the pearled spelt is cooked nicely.

Grate the cheese and add it to the pan, and also season the stuffing with salt, pepper and sage. Add more butter or white wine, if you think it's needed.

Stuff the onion shells and the heirloom tomatoes with the spelt mix and bake at 180C for about 25 minutes. Then enjoy!

This was my my 300^th blog post, thank you for reading it!

Your VegHog