One of my favorite things about August is the absolute abundance of tomatoes. This is a complete flip from when I was a child. I grew up thinking raw tomatoes were disgusting. Cooked ones were fine as long as they were totally smooth -- chunky tomato sauce was a no-no. Then I went to college and stopped having time to pick things I didn't like out of the cafeteria food, so sometimes I ate chunks of tomato even when I didn't want to. There was a bit of a breakthrough when my sister-in-law took me out for my first burrito and I actively enjoyed the pico de gallo salsa in it despite the fact that it was mostly raw tomatoes. Then when I went to Japan for study abroad, my host mom would put raw tomato wedges in salad and I decided to eat them to be polite, but here's the thing: the tomatoes were actually tasty. Turns out I was just eating crappy tomatoes up until then. Fast forward to now and here I am growing them in my garden (like my mom does) and getting excited about receiving them in my CSA haul. A fresh in-season tomato is a joy.
Sometimes, though, you have more than you can eat raw, and so even though it's August, you want to cook them. I stumbled upon this recipe on Smitten Kitchen and since I had lots of big tomatoes to eat up, and I love risotto and it uses the same type of rice, I set to work. I served it with potato gnocchi tossed with some leftover spinach-hazelnut pesto from this recipe.
Verdict: It was good, but kind of a lot of work. I don't know if I'd go out of my way to make it again but I'm glad I tried it!
RECIPE: Rice Stuffed Tomatoes
