I was driving to the store specifically to get the remaining ingredients needed for my raw tabouli, when I heard on NPR radio someone talking about the fresh tomatoes in their garden. I then thought how awesome it would be if I stuffed tomatoes with my tabouli! So…here is the finished product! No oil, no wheat, nuts or grains. Just pure, sweet, fresh, vegetables!

Let us begin!

You will need:

– 3 cups finely chopped parsley (your choice of any type, I personally prefer Italian for this recipe)

– 2 cups finely chopped leeks (details below)

– 1 cup finely chopped cilantro

– 1/4 cup fresh mint

– 1 clove minced garlic

– 4 (or more) tomatoes

– juice of 1 to 2 lemons

– salt and pepper to taste

Step 1:

Our first step is finely chop our parsley, cilantro, mint and garlic, then add it to a large bowl.

Next, we will take our leeks, and chop off the bottom part, as we will use that in replacement of onion, which is the usual ingredient. I just prefer leeks better, they are soooo good for you and have a wonderful flavor!

We will use the bottom white part of the leeks for our recipe. For two cups you usually need the bottoms of 2 leeks.

Slice the leeks in half, then lengthwise, then chop them up into finely diced pieces, and add them to a large bowl.

Step 2:

Next, we will take 3 of our 4 tomatoes. Slice the bottoms off, leaving the top part where the stem is still on. This part is flatter than the bottoms, so we will use that as our base:

Save the bottoms, as we will chop that up and add it to our tabouli salad!

Next, we will scoop our the insides of 3 of our 4 tomatoes, making room for them to be stuffed.

Once the insides are out, we will then chop them up along with our 4th tomato, and add that to the salad.

Step 3:

Our last step is to squeeze the lemon juice into the mix, and add the salt and pepper, about 1 tsp each. Mix everything together in a bowl, and voila! We are done with our raw tabouli! No added oils, and no grains!

GORGEOUS COLORS!

This works wonderful as a salad for a meal by itself, or as a side for another dish! The options are limitless! But I digress…

Step 4:

Next, we will take our cored out tomatoes, and begin to stuff them with the tabouli. Make sure to pack it in there tight, so you can have a well stuffed tabouli tomato!

And we are done! Sprinkle the tops with sesame or hemp seeds, then dig in!

Soooo good!

I’m about to dig in! Look at how perfectly stuffed those are!

And one last view:

Overflowing with fresh, lemony goodness!

I had some leftover tabouli salad from the day before, so I decided to also stuff them into bell peppers for my dinner. They turned out great!