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Avocado Stuffed Tomatoes

These pretty litle vitamin-packed tomato cups are filled with a mixture of avocado, goat cheese, spinach-basil pesto and lemon juice. Easy to make and hard to resist!
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Prep Time 20 minutes
Total Time 20 minutes
Servings 3 dozen

Ingredients
  

  • 18 Cherry Tomatoes
  • 1/2 large Avocado
  • 1 Tbsp Fresh Lemon Juice
  • 2 ounces Goat Cheese could also use cream cheese
  • 1 Tbsp Pesto (see notes below)
  • 1/4 tsp Salt
  • 1/4 tsp Black Pepper
  • Fresh Basil Leaves optional
  • Fresh Jalapeno Slices optional

Instructions
 

  • Cut each cherry tomato in half. Scoop the pulp out of each half using a spoon or a strawberry huller (the one pictured is from Pampered Chef - see notes below). A serrated grapefruit spoon works well too. Turn halves cut side down on a paper towel to drain.
  • Put remaining ingredients (excluding fresh basil and jalapeno) into the quart-sized resealable baggie and close tightly. Smoosh (technical term) the ingredients gently with your hands until smooth and well combined.
  • Make a piping bag out of the baggie by cutting off a small piece of one of the bottom corners with a scissors. Carefully guide the mixture toward the cut corner, twisting the top half of the bag as pictured.
  • Fill each tomato half with filling by gently squeezing the bag from the top.
  • Garnish with minced basil and/or jalapeno slices.
  • Refrigerate until ready to serve. Best to serve the same day they were made to retain bright colors.

Notes

  1. Pesto: Making your own pesto is very easy and it freezes really well. Here is the recipe for my Spinach-Basil Pesto.
  2. The number of tomatoes that the avocado mixture will fill depends, of course, on the size of the tomatoes you have. See blog post for serving suggestions for any leftover mixture.
  3. If you are not a fan of the piping bag, press and mix the ingredients with a fork until smooth and then simply use a small spoon to fill the tomato halves.
  4. The little silver tool for scooping out the tomato halves came from Pampered Chef. They no longer have this particular tool but they do have an updated version that is also a mellon-baller. It is called the "Core and More".
  5. Be creative! You can add diced jalapeno to the mixture, use lime juice instead of lemon, cilantro instead of basil, or throw in some crumbled bacon.