Cooking with Patty, my personal collection of Italian recipes

Ripe tomatoes filled with creamy goat cheese, diced tomatoes and flavored with fresh herbs like chives, basil, arugula or spiced up with Calabrian red hot chili pepper. The combinations are endless but it’s important to find the right  cheese. In Italian this particular goat cheese is called, “caprino” and you can find it in most grocery stores. Make sure it is in fact made with goat milk as often it’s written caprino cheese but  made with cows milk instead.

I buy mine from a local farmer every Saturday where a producer comes down from the mountains with a wide variety of goat cheeses. The caprino cheese is just produced the day before. This fresh cheese is much better than the one that I  find at the store even if they’re both good.

I like to eat these filled tomatoes as a light meal but they can also be served as an appetizer decorated with the herbs used in the fillings. Just a few minutes to assemble the dish and your healthy refreshing meal or appetizer is ready.

For this recipe I used the herbs found in my garden, but you can also vary the filling by adding some black olives, chopped cucumber and chives, chopped dried tomatoes and oregano.

Ingredients:

3/4 cup fresh caprino cheese
4 ripe tomatoes, 2 inch diameter*
1/2 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1/8 tsp. sea salt
a  few strands of chives
2-3 basil leaves
2 wild arugula leaves
red hot pepper powder

Instructions:

1. Cut the top of each tomato. Discard the juice and the seeds. Eliminate the core from each tomato top and cut the remaining pulp in small cubes, you need 1/3 cup. If the pulp isn’t enough use some from an extra tomato.
2. Sprinkle the inside of each tomato with sea salt and place them bottom up on a plate. Leave them for about 15 minutes  allowing the salt to eliminate the extra liquid.
3. In the meantime soften the goat cheese using a spatula. Add the oil, salt and tomato cubes and mix gently.
4. Divide the cheese cream in four to prepare the different fillings.
5. Add about 1/4 tsp. minced chives to one part. Add 2-3 finely chopped basil leaves to the second. Add 1/2 tsp. chopped arugula to the third.  Add a good pinch of red hot pepper to the fourth.
6. Fill each tomato with a different filling and top each of them with the same herb you used in the filling. For the chili pepper filling if you don’t want it too spicy sprinkle paprika on top instead.
7. Refrigerate the tomatoes for an hour and serve.

Notes:
Use any size you want just adjust the filling accordingly.

Other goat cheeses from the producer where I buy mine.

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