Stuffed Tomatoes/Stuffed Peppers

This is an easy and inexpensive meal.  And is good for you.

You can use peppers or tomato although there are other possibles.  These two are easy and tend to link with each other.

As a vegetarian I stuff my peppers with non-meat, usually a vegemince I’ve soak in the excess liquid of previous batches.

How to make Stuffed Tomatoes/Stuffed Peppers?

It suits you to soak vegemince or soy protein in a tasty sauce so that it picks up and magnifies the flavour.  I usually begin with a vegecheese bottom and a vegecheese top, but you and use regular cheese if you want.

Begin by cutting an opening at the top of the pepper.  This is easy as you cut around the stem and pull it out.  You clean out the seeds, and when the pepper is empty you begin stuffing.

Use your left overs, that spoonful of peas, that dollop of potato, whatever you have.

Pack it well, push it down, save the liquid for next time.

With tomatoes you have to make room, so pull out a lot of the tomato.  Use this in tomato sauce, for fresh tomatoes are always the best flavour.

Stuff your tomato as you would the pepper.

Always save bits and pieces of previous meals, stuff too tiny to be of much use.  These bits are fantastic in the stuffing.

Keep a container in the freezer with left over vegemince that has been soaked, and all the bits and pieces you save over a week.

You can also add flavours, barbecue sauce, jerk seasoning, garlic, whatever you like is added to your ‘base’ which is kept frozen until you need it.

Always save the liquid that comes out of the pepper or tomato for the next batch of vegemince.

Once you’ve made your stuffed tomato(s) or pepper(s) you will put them into the microwave for about four minutes.  They should come out a bit underdone.

This is because you will save some of them for another meal.

The one you are going to eat now goes back into the micro for two minutes.

You will find that after you make this the first time, whether you use tomato or pepper, you will have the fixings to make the next batch and will begin to hoard those tiny pieces of left overs; i.e. a cauliflower floret (or broccoli) a handful of nuts, a bit of macaroni, a few shards of tofu.

Whatever is left over, no matter how small, from any previous meal goes into the freezer container for next time.

These meals are cheap because the ingredients are mostly ‘free’, being the remnants of a previous meal.

You can make a number of them at once and save them in the fridge.

The stuffing stays in the freezer until you are ready for it. Then you let it thaw and may heat it up, add flavours to it, and then stuffed your pepper or tomato.   You should have left over which you keep out until you’ve finished the first cooking, and you add the liquid to it.

When it is thawed there will be a good portion of liquid which you use to hydrate the vegemince.

If you do it right, it is delicious.