Tomatoes Stuffed with Chicken, Herbs, and Cheese

Eric and I moved into our new place--a flat in a 1880s Victorian--about a week ago and we're both completely in love with it. It has a beautiful bay window, a fireplace, French doors, and hardwood floors. Not to mention a huge dining room. Plus, it's so close to Eric's work that he can walk. The kitchen is on the small side, but it's still bigger than any kitchen I've ever had. While we were unpacking, we lived off of leftover pizza, rotisserie chicken, and leftover cake from our wedding shower. But tonight I cooked our first meal in our place!

The other day my mom came to visit, check out the new digs, and go mother-of-the-bride dress shopping.  She also brought us a bunch of tomatoes and cherry tomatoes from her garden. The cherry tomatoes will be made into sun-dried tomatoes. But what to do with the bag of beefsteaks and early girls? Well, we had a little bit of the rotisserie chicken left over so I made tomatoes stuffed with chicken and herbs. It was so good that I can't wait to experiment with other stuffed tomato recipes.

Ingredients:
4 tomatoes (I used 2 beefsteak, 2 early girls)
kosher salt
4 tablespoons minced onion
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 pieces of bacon (I used turkey bacon)
1 cup cooked chicken, shredded or cubed 
1/2 cup Italian herb breadcrumbs
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
1 tablespoon dried basil
1/2 cup Italian blend shredded cheese (or mozzarella)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease a cookie sheet with cooking spray.

Cut off the top of the tomatoes. Scoop out the innards with a spoon. You can either reserve them for another use or discard them. Lightly sprinkle the insides with salt and set them upside down on a paper towel to extract juices.

While the tomatoes drain, cook the bacon; set aside. Reserve a little bit of bacon grease and saute the onions and garlic in it until they are golden brown. In a medium bowl, mix together the chicken, breadcrumbs, Parmesan, basil, garlic, and onions.

Place the tomatoes on the cookie sheet and divide the chicken mixture between the four tomatoes. Next, divide the cheese between the tomatoes, sprinkling it on top. Crumble the bacon and sprinkle it on top of the cheese. Bake for 20 minutes or until the tomatoes are cooked and the cheese is melted.

We made roasted potatoes to go with our stuffed tomatoes. However, instead of roasting them under the broiler like we usually do, I cooked them at 400 degrees for an hour. After 40 minutes I put the tomatoes in with the potatoes.

Enjoy!

~Krissy