Chicken-Stuffed Tomatoes

I made this for a little dinner w/ some friends a couple of weeks ago.  It turned out good considering that I realized I needed almost twice as much as what the recipe called for so I had to try and make it work, and it did i think ... either that or that they were just being really nice.  Although the fact that half of em don't like tomatoes didn't help much, ha

Chicken - Stuffed Tomatoes

(Mine didn't quite look this good)

Ingredients:


1 Cup uncooked rosamarina (orzo) pasta (6 ounces)*

4 large tomatoes

1 medium cucumber, peeled, seeded and chopped (1 cup)

2 cut-up cooked chicken(or turkey)
1/2 Cup ranch or creamy dill dressing

Directions:

1. Cook and drain pasta as directed on package.  Rinse with cold water; drain.
   
2. Cut stem ends from tomatoes.  Remove pulp, leaving 1/2-inch wall.  Chop tomato pulp; drain.  Cut thin slice from bottom of each tomato to prevent tipping.
3. Mix past, chopped tomato and remaining ingredients.  Spoon 1/2 cup pasta mixture into each tomato.  Serve with remaining pasta mixture.  Or cut tomato shells into halves or fourths; divide pasta mixture evenly among tomatoes.

* 3 cups cold cooked rice can be substituted for the cooked pasta

Prep: 20 min
4 Servings

Substitutions:

Instead of the chicken use
Salmon-Stuffed Tomatoes: 1 can (14 3/4 ounces) salmon, drained and skin removed

Shrimp-Stuffed Tomatoes: 2 packages (5 ounces each) frozen cooked salad shrimp, thawed.

Tuna-Stuffed Tomatoes: 1 can (12 ounces) tuna, rinsed and drained.

Pepper Shrimp

I made this for a work pot-luck a while ago and it went over awesomely. I got the recipe from a Caribbean recipe website but unfortunately half a year later still cannot find that some site because it had some other recipes that I would have liked to try out.

Pepper Shrimp

( I never took a picture of mine but found this one that looked similar)

Ingredients:

1 lb large shrimp in shell
3 crushed garlic cloves
3 thyme sprigs
3 scotch bonnet peppers, halved and seeded
1 Tablespoon salt
1 Tablespoon vinegar
1/2 Tablespoon black pepper
Cooking oil

Directions:

1. Over medium heat, add 1/4 -1/2 cup oil with garlic, salt, black pepper, scotch bonnets, and thyme sprigs.

2. Add the shrimp and cook for 5 minutes. Keep stirring the shrimp then add the vinegar.

3. Cook for another 2-3 minutes.

Cooking time: 10 minutes
Serves: 4ish

My Notes:

The Shrimp: It doesn't need to have the shell on. You don’t even really need to be raw you can buy pre cooked I’ve used both.

The Garlic: You can never have too much I put a bit more that recipe calls for.

The Thyme: I don't know what a sprig is so I just bought a jar of thyme and pored some in.

The Pepper: Scotch bonnet pepper is similar to the habanero but with a different taste. I’ve yet to find that the scotch bonnet closer than an hour away. *** I just used different Bell Peppers (red, green, yellow, orange). ***

The Salt: I used Mediterranean salt and I always use no more then half the recipe calls for.

The Oil: I used 5/8 (or 1/4 + 1/8) and 1/4.