Garden Tomatoes and Goat Cheese

Magazine Mondays! I found this idea on Ivonne’s blog Cream Puffs in Vencie and I immediately took to the idea. I too have lots of magazines, with recipes patiently waiting to be made… See if I can make this a habit? For my first Magazine Monday recipe I chose a quick and easy one from Viva (Vol. 6, no. 2), and here is what happened…

The original recipe is as follows (but I did end up changing it around a bit):

Ingredients:

• 3 small and ripe Italian tomatoes
• 1/2 cup (125ml) olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 tsp (5ml) orange juice
• 1 spring coriander
• 1 spring wild purple sage
• 2 wild camomille leaves
• 1 spring parsley leaves
• 1 spring wild thyme
• 3 tbsp (45ml) soft goat cheese
• rind of 1/4 orange

Preparation:

• Cut the top off the tomatoes and empty them with a melon baller.
• Place them in a medium-size oven-safe pan and pour the oil over them. Preheat oven to 340°F (170°C) and bake for 10 minutes.
• In a mixing bowl, combine the remaining ingredients, except the orange rind.
• Remove tomatoes and allow to cool for 10 minutes. With a pastry pouch stuff the tomatoes with the cheese and herb mix. Top with the orange rind.

So what’s wrong with this recipe? Well, for one thing they forgot to mention that you have to put the tomatoes back into the oven once you filled them with the goat cheese for another 10-15 minutes. I also find the olive oil way too much! Then Gerard, my friend from IHN( an executive chef from France by the way) would say, the list of ingredients should be in order of importance, with goat cheese right after the tomatoes on top of the list – but that’s just a minor detail.

I found it a bit impractical to get one spring or leaf of each herb. I do grow some of my own herbs in pots, so I just picked some of what I had and used it instead of the ones in the recipe. I figured parsley, chives, oregano and sage would be a good combination to try. I used lots of parsley and chives, and just a bit of oregano and sage, and the result was quite tasty. So I encourage everyone to experiment with their combination of herbs.

I used goat feta, and I needed more orange juice to make it creamier.

Oh, and don’t worry if you don’t have a melon baller, or a pastry pouch – just use a spoon.

Overall, I am glad I found this recipe, with a few changes it makes for a nice vegetarian appetizer.