CrockPot Tomatoes and Goat Cheese with Cranberry Balsamic Syrup

Day 151.

Happy Friday! Although Fridays are supposed to be margarita nights, you should scrap that plan and go get a nice bottle of red wine and the ingredients to make these stuffed tomato slices.

In your crockpot.

They are so good you will be tempted to say bad words.

The Ingredients.

adapted from Simply Ming

--4 medium vine ripened tomatoes

--3 T balsamic vinegar

--log of goat cheese

--1/4 cup dried cranberries

--1/4 t kosher salt

--1/4 t black pepper

--1 T sesame oil ( I think this could be optional)

The Directions.

I used a 6qt oval Smart-Pot for this recipe. My tomatoes touched and some were on top of each other. If you are going to use a 4qt, put the tomatoes on top staggered a bit. They will turn out fine.

--Swirl the balsamic vinegar on the bottom of your crockpot.

--slice the tomatoes into thick slices

--slice the goat cheese. In the original recipe, Ming says to use dental floss. Our dental floss is either mint or bubble gum flavor, so I used a knife. It worked fine.

--put the goat cheese on top of the tomatoes and then add the tomatoes to the crock

--sprinkle your salt and pepper

--add the dried cranberries

--pour the 1 T of sesame oil evenly over the top of the tomatoes and goat cheese

cover and cook on high for 2 hours, or until the goat cheese is melty and the tomatoes are starting to pucker and look so good you have to eat them or you're going to freak out.

The Verdict.

Oh My Little Pony, these couldn't possibly be any better. I do think the sesame oil is optional---the balsamic and the juice from the tomatoes add enough moisture for the roasting to occur, and I could not taste the sesame flavor at all. If you don't have sesame oil, I think you could omit the oil fully or try a nice olive oil.

The kids loved these. I so wish they didn't, so I could have eaten them all myself. They were intrigued to try goat cheese for the first time, especially because they've been hearing about my friend Alison and her goat farm. Hi Alison! Goat cheese is like a nice, creamy, mild feta. I have found it at Trader Joe's and in the regular grocery store in the "nice cheese" case. If you wanted to, you could use feta for this dish, but I totally recommend trying the goat.

We ate them warm with our fingers, but they'd taste great on slices of french bread, probably.