Its nearly that time of year and as Jude allowed me a walk around the garden under strict threat of a size 5 up my rear end if I tore open the surgeons neatly tailored 5 holes,i was to pick simple light bits in a bowl......frustrating or what....
well I picked a few nicely coloured Marmandes from the green house along with a few yellow cherry toms and a whole host of
.....whole beans..an onion....a few salad onions..a couple of Pedron Chillies...Thyme sprigs...Summer savoury leaves...Oregano leaves..sage leaves
so with the contents of my Harvest plate I thought it rude not to combine a suitable stuffing mixture for the Marmandes.
1st job was to empty the Marmandes and lets not kid each other,a sharp knife and dexterity still sees you do your best but the tommies still split so my solution is to wrap it in foil to hold the tommy together.....its not that we are stuffing a thick skinned pepper
for presentation as after 30 to 50 mins the tommies will fall apart anyway to a degree..........tools are for me a sharp knife and a dull edged spoon to get the job done.
I wanted to add some extra flavour and heat but the pedrons so far have been all delicious but little heat,but hey thats fine,so charred them under the grill and once pipped just chopped fine...........
softened the onions in some spray oil along with some mushrooms I had spare plus 1 garlic clove ,again to add some flavour to the stuffing mixture......
adding the herbs is an art form that I don't profess to achieve every time but little at a time is I find through trial and error best for me.....so just 1 sage leaf....2 oregano leaves...3 summer savoury leaves....and a sprig of thyme which goes in the pan whole....
so with the herbs added we can add some chopped whole cobra beans the chopped Marmande tomato pulp plus the grilled and chopped chilli peppers along with a splash of hot water.....bring it to the boil ...and take off the heat......taste.....and season ...once happy.....close the heat down and let it stew for 15 mins ............once cooked and cooled chop any over sized veggies to make stuffing easy.....
once you are happy with the mixture let is sit to one side to cool.........
stuff the Marmande Tomatoes and top with its little tommy lid.........spray with low cal oil and place in a cooking tray...
pre heat the oven to 190 degrees and anywhere between 30 to 50 mins will see them well cooked through....it really depends on how soft you like them.....
this is optional but again if you have some dried bread crumbs whizzed up with 50g of parmesan cheese I topped the tomatoes and grilled this for the last 10 mins.....a tasty addition in my opinion.......as you can see the Marmandes collapse after 30 to 50 mins of
oven heat @ 190 degrees but we are after an overall combination of flavours and not really a tommy with contents......
but lowering the heat and cooking time can see you with a different outcome....that's the fun of experimenting.
and so we have a simple combinations of flavours from our plot/garden added to a beautiful Marmande Tomato without doubt
a top tommy for stuffing........yes of course you can do the traditional hollowed out and stuffed with cream cheese and grilled
cant deny that is very tasty.....but when a harvest of herbs and veggies is available for creating something is such a shame not to use them...............and yes,its not every day we end up with a vegetarian result (with bread crumbs and grated cheese topping optional ) that can be eaten as is or added to cooked meats ......
not getting carried away not a recipe as such just a use of our crops to a tasty result.........
I added them to our Dorset Butchers Cumberland sausages plus some par boiled new spuds that I dug last week that I fried off and we all enjoyed it....
so thank you Garden,you did us proud.
Gazza