stuffed tomatoes

the pantry was bare. the refrigerator was empty. traces of thanksgiving, gone. the thought of having to eat the questionable frozen dumplings in the freezer was incentive enough to check the kitchen one more time...

cheez-its... soy nuts... canned soup... rice-a-roni... ovaltine (not mine)... canned chili...maybe tonight would be a nice night to try out the korean restaurant down the street... lactose free milk... asparagus... tomatoes... green onions... half a lemon... hmm...

i could stuff the tomatoes with something, rice-a-roni perhaps? i've never stuffed a tomato or made rice-a roni. i've never even made rice in anything other than a rice cooker! i may fail, which could actually make for an interesting blog but hah! fail i did not!!!

i started to tackle the box of rice-a-roni. umm excuse me? you want me to stir butter into this dry rice? okay... abort mission! i crossed my fingers and hoped that the rice would magically fluff. while the rice cooked, i hollowed out the tomatoes, saving the tomato juice and pulp to mix with the rice later.

the rice was actually fluffy! i scooped the rice out and gasp! i swear i followed the directions exactly, and folks, this is why we don't cook rice in a pot.

oh well, it's will's turn to do the dishes...

i mixed the rice with the left over tomato juice & pulp but it was still a bit bland. i added some minced garlic, parmesan, salt and pepper. i stuffed the tomatoes, drizzled a bit of olive oil on top and sprinkled some more parm on top so that it'd brown. popped it in the oven to bake at 350 for 15 minutes and then brown it in the broiler for 5 minutes.

the asparagus was calling my name so i decided to broil the asparagus at the same time.

success! i rock! it was o-so-delish!

fun facts:

• if you hold both ends of an asparagus and bend, it will automatically break right before the point where it turns tough
• the tomato is technically a fruit
• rice-a-roni was inspired by an Armenian rice pilaf recipe - a mixture of rice and macaroni