Chickpea orzo stuffed tomatoes for the fall harvest

As summer has come to a close and Fall/Stav/סתיב tolls the harvest in advance of Sukkot, I have picked most of the tomatoes on my plants either to be eaten immediately, set to ripen, or used after a short time I found myself wondering what to do with the handful of fully ripe and fancifully-ribbed tomatoes needing to be used.

Looking at what I already had in the pantry, I decided to make stuffed tomatoes with some of the unique single-ingredient chickpea orzo from Barilla. I’ve previously written about their embrace of wheat-alternative pasta and pastas enhanced with legume ingredients, yet this diamantine orzo is one of their best creations even to my gluten-loving preferences.

This recipe would work just as well with ptitim, which is often known as Israeli couscous that’s was often called Ben-Gurion rice. Ptitim (פתיתים) means ‘flakes’ and was created by the Osem food company in 1953, due to rationing during Israel’s austerity policy during the economic hardship of 1949 to 1959; originally it looked the same as orzo and that shape is still made by Osem and other companies like Tami, sometimes called Israeli rice or ptitim orez/אורז yet also still call orez Ben-Gurion/בן-גוריון.

Gluten-free ptitim orez is also made by Eshbal Functional Food’s Barili Free Living line of gluten-free products. Other ptitim shapes are stars/kochavim/כוכבים, rings/tabaot/טבעות, and hearts/levavot/לבבות.

Sometimes the common round couscous shape that’s larger than typical couscous is also known as pearl couscous and resembles pearled barley. Orzo and orez both mean rice, rice being the shape both ptitim and orzo originally were modeled after; the chickpea orzo still recalls this reference to rice in its form, albeit in a distinct and innovatively enjoyable form.

All of these options might work, yet this chickpea orzo also has a great mouthfeel in addition to being high protein, a good balance of soluble and insoluble dietary fiber, vegan, and kosher-certified.

Ingredients:

Filling:
½ cup dry Barilla chickpea orzo
½ cup frozen peas and cubed carrots blend

Tomatoes:
10 smallish (3″ to 4″ / 7cm to 10cm) stuffing tomatoes such as the smaller of the fruits of those I harvested from my Homs No. 11, Costoluto Genovese, or Rosso Sicilian varieties

Seasoning:
2 tbsp chopped fresh chives
3 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp tahini
3 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp chopped fresh mint
3 pinches kosher salt

Topping:
2 small onions, I used red onions though sweet onions would be excellent as well

Instructions:

This recipe is a teensy bit involved yet actually very easy. As I only have one working burner on the stove, I have the ongoing opportunity to improvise a bit. Thus lacking more than that single burner I opted to boil the orzo on the stovetop while broiling the onion in the stove as well subsequently broiling the peas and carrots; more on that later, for now mix up the seasoning and prep the tomatoes.

To make the seasoning, I combined the seasoning ingredients in a mason jar and shook; you can reuse most jars to do this or stir the ingredients in a measuring cup. I started with this step and then set it aside to be combined with the stuffing. It should look creamy and relatively uniform aside from the chives and mint, it will not separate while sitting.

To prep the tomatoes, cut the tops off and scoop the seeds and any excess flesh out besides some of the outermost rib for support, I used the tip of a butter knife to carefully scoop after using a serrated knife to remove the top. You can save the seeds from this and grow more tomatoes if that sounds like a good time to you or even donate the seeds to your local seed library, though if you use more than one variety you may end up with a delightfully diverse mix of seeds that should be labeled as such.

Since I also decided to top the stuffed tomatoes with crispy onions, I somewhat lazily made these by thin-slicing the onion and broiling it carefully with some olive oil in several nonstick bread pans. There are better ways to do this, as my friend Adva taught me. You can choose to do this more properly and you’ll likely have better onions for it compared to mine that turned out a bit overly crispy, yet this works well enough.

After making the onions, removing them from the oven, combining them in one of the bread pans, and covering that pan with tinfoil to set aside until topping the tomatoes, I briefly broiled the peas and carrots in the leftover oil from the onions.

Once the peas and carrots had a nice bit of color while still relatively firm, I combined the chickpea orzo with peas and carrots, then mixing in the seasoning. After making sure the stuffing mixture was well-mixed, I used a spoon to carefully transfer the stuffing to each tomato. Once each tomato had been stuffed and the stuffing in them patted down (not too hard, you don’t want to burst the tomatoes) to both level the tops and ensure full stuffing, taking a bit of onion to top each completes your tomatoes.

Feel free to add olives, garlic, or other ingredients to the seasoning. This recipe is by default vegan and easily kosher, yet could be made with the addition of cheese as a topping if so desired. I hope you enjoy this recipe!