Any baked vegetables are very versatile. They can act as a side dish, are an excellent snack. And with a certain stuffing they are a completely independent (and very tasty!) Dish. Most housewives are well aware of this matter. However, most often they bake either eggplant or pepper. But baked tomatoes in the oven make these vegetables quite a successful competition. And they prepare quickly enough.
Whole tomatoes
Most often, chopped or stuffed tomatoes are cooked in the oven. If you are interested in baked whole tomatoes in the oven, you will have to turn your attention to small fruits. Large ones during processing will soften, lose their shape (up to a mushy state) and may not bake. So in this way, baked cherry tomatoes are most often cooked in the oven. They are small, have a dense but fleshy structure, which is fundamentally important in this case. So, tomatoes are bought as small as possible and laid out in the form where they will be baked. A pinch of crushed garlic is placed on each vegetable - so small that one clove is enough for 300 g of tomatoes. Preparing to fill with a teaspoon of acacia honey, half a stack of balsamic vinegar and the same volume of olive (undesirable to replace) oil. Vegetables are poured with this sauce and sprinkled with sea salt, chopped thyme and ground pepper. It turns out very tasty whole baked tomatoes. They will stay in the oven for half an hour at 180 degrees.
Baked Spinach Tomatoes
You will have to tinker with the implementation of this recipe, but the result is a hassle. Cherry or other small tomatoes are also required here - a little less than half a kilogram. The baking sheet is covered with greased parchment, vegetables, cut into halves, are laid out on it. To make amazingly delicious baked tomatoes in the oven, the recipe advises to sprinkle them with olive oil and immediately pepper and salt. It is not necessary to bake them for long - up to 20 minutes. Shortly before cooking, about 300 g of spinach are fried in a skillet in the same oil (a minute, not longer). Greens are placed on a wide dish, on it are baked tomatoes in the oven. Cubes of feta cheese (60 g), toasted pine nuts (15 grams) are laid out on tomatoes, and the whole structure is poured with dressing made from the juice of half an orange, its own peel, a spoonful of sugar, finely chopped small red onion, a large spoonful of mustard, the same amounts of lemon juice, salt and pepper. You can eat!
English breakfast: tomatoes and eggs
Inhabitants of foggy Albion eat baked tomatoes in the oven for breakfast. To do this, large tomatoes are gutted: the top is cut off, the core is carefully removed, and the resulting "cups" are placed on a baking sheet. An egg is driven into each of them, onto which a piece of oil is neatly attached. Do not forget about salt and pepper! Such tomatoes are sent to the oven for about 20 minutes; temperature is set at 200 degrees. If you want to get real English baked tomatoes - in the oven, before removing them, brown slices of bacon and serve with vegetables on a slice of brown bread.
Green sauce for baked tomatoes
An even more interesting dish can be obtained if you cook stuffed tomatoes baked in the oven. You can stuff tomatoes with a variety of products. For example, crumble eggplant, quickly fry it, combine with tomato pulp, taken out to obtain “containers”, with spices (Italian herbs are great) and stew the filling a little more. It is laid out on tomatoes, which should be covered with cut tops. Flavor highlight such baked tomatoes in the oven are obliged to green sauce. It is made from basil, spinach and garlic, passed through a blender. The resulting puree is boiled over low heat for about six minutes, until excess water has evaporated (the sauce should be thick). Prepared tomatoes are sent to the oven for half an hour. It is not heated very much - up to 150 degrees. Already served, they are poured with sauce. Take into account that eating them must be hot.
Meat lovers
Do not want to do only vegetarian food - buy or make yourself minced beef. It must be combined with boiled rice in a ratio of 2: 1, add chopped onions, thyme, garlic and middle, taken out of tomatoes. To stuffed tomatoes baked in the oven, do not break up in the oven, they must be pricked with a needle or a toothpick. Tomatoes are put into shape, covered with "caps", cut from them, are shifted by thyme. At the bottom of the pan, a little water is poured. After a quarter of an hour, the baked vegetables are ready (if you set the temperature to 180 degrees).
Mushroom filling
Stuffed tomatoes baked in the oven and stuffed with champignons are simply and quickly cooked. Mushrooms (300 g is enough for a dozen tomatoes) are finely chopped and fried with two chopped onions and two cloves of garlic. Finely chopped greens and seasonings are added to the prepared “stuffing”. The filling is laid in tomatoes, hard cheese is rubbed on top and a spoonful of mayonnaise is poured. The oven warms up to 180 degrees. Medium-sized tomatoes will cook for a quarter of an hour. If you come across large instances, increase the time to twenty minutes. When you are planning to carry the baked tomatoes in the oven on the table, put sour cream to them and sprinkle with greens on top.