Baked Cheesy Tomato Basil Cups

I was looking around at one of my favorite blogs and found this yummy snack: baked cheesy tomato basil cups.  The blog writer claims this is a good recipe for fresh tomatoes from the garden.  I believe her.  However, I have no fresh tomatoes from a garden (and likely will not given my locale) but tomatoes from the grocery store work just as well.  I followed her recipe exactly except that I only made one very large vine ripe tomato and stuffed it with a quarter of the recipe.

Here I took a picture to show you how large my tomato was.

Here I have cut off the top, taken out the seeds and inside and consumed them. 

Here is my tomato in the marinade for ten minutes.  This is pretty messy, but that's what hand-washing is all about.

Here it is in it's own personal baking dish with a little parchment paper on the bottom for ease of clean up (and it is very easy).

The finished product after baking.  You can see the filling sinks down a little but that's okay.  I eat mine with a fork and knife and cut it.  I'm sure you could make these bite size based on your tomatoes but I am too lazy to do all the work for smaller tomatoes.  I did buy fresh basil, but now that I have a recipe that I love that calls for fresh basil, I might consider growing some.  This large tomato contains enough protein for me to call it lunch (a vegetarian lunch but that counts all the same).  Be careful not to burn your mouth as you eagerly consume this tasty treat.