put a little lovage in your heart: stuffed tomaters

we stayed with christian's family this weekend and returned home with fresh veggies from the garden--chard and lovage and tomaters and salades (salad greens).

for lunch, i made stuffed tomatoes. i used:
one slice of stale bread, crumbled
2 cloves of garlic
3 chard leaves and stems (the chard here is huge)
a large clump of lovage



i separated the leaves from the chard and lightly steamed the stem. meanwhile, i chopped the tops from the tomatoes and scooped them out with a spoon, saving the guts for something else. once the stems were steamed, i let them cool and then chopped them up in the food processor, along with the bread, garlic, and lovage. i love lovage. poor lovage doenst get enough love in the US... boy howdy is it gooooooood.

 it has a rather strong flavour: parsley with a bite but with a hint of celery, and the crisp of cilantro without the cilantro flavour.

it has zip.


i steamed the leaves of the chard as well, just to get things rolling, and chopped them up once they cooled.



i gave the tomatoes a crank of salt and pepper each and warmed up the oven to 350/175°.

then i grated some special cheese...



Gruyère from the village where christian grew up. his grandfather was a cheesemaker in the Fromagerie next door to the family home, and that's where this came from.

there are not rows and rows of gruyère rounds like in Gruyères, but i like the cheese from baulmes because of the family history. and i like cows.










i also like that in the evenings, you can see the line of farmers delivering fresh milk.

so, yes, i grated some cheese, plunked that on top, and put the tomatoes in the oven for about a half an hour until the cheese was golden and gooey and the whole place smelled amazing.

and in the end, i had a pretty fabulous lunch.

the leftovers are not so shabby either.