I always plan my meals around protein. Every day I opt for different protein- white meats, red meats, seafood, meat free protein.

I got spoiled in Abu Dhabi knowing that you can buy here almost anything at any point of time. You can feel just very little of a season aspect when it comes to choice of fruit and veggies in the shops. Everything is imported!

Recently I started ordering every week 9kg box of organic veggies and fruits (mostly locally grown,  some are imported). It is good value and good quality and I like to bring to our life here a bit of “natural”.

Every week the selection is slightly different. This encourages me to a completely different approach to planning my meals. Rather then planning the meals bases on what I fancy I plan based on what I have and what I simply have to use. Sometimes it is veggies or fruits I would have less of preference to buy.

This has really revolutionized my cooking last few week and also made it different and bit more fun.

Last week I had in my box  also some big tomatoes and aubergine. I can’t remember last time I bought aubergine.  So this is what I made for our dinner yesterday yum yum!

Tomato stuffed with aubergine, mozzarella cheese and basel

Preparation time: 10 min    

Cooking time time: 15 min

Ingredients:

  • 1 aubergine
  •  1 onion
  •  3 garlic cloves
  •  3 tbsp olive oil
  • 1/2 cup basel
  • 1 mozzarella cheese

Method:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
  2. Heat oil in a non-stick skillet over medium-low heat. Fry the onion for 2 min then add the eggplants and basel and fry until golden brown. Add the garlic at the end and stir for another 2 min. Set aside.
  3. To prepare the tomato cups, carefully cut tops off of each tomato and scoop out seeds and pulp with a melon baller or spoon. Reserve the tops.
  4. Stuff the tomatoes with the eggplant mixture and place them in the baking dish and bake for about 20 min.
  5. At the end top each evenly with mozzarella cheese. Place the reserved tomato tops to the baking dish (not on top of the tomatoes). Broil tomatoes until the cheese is melted and lightly golden.
  6. You can serve it as an appetizer or as a side dish (chicken or fish goes nicely with it).