I recently put the call out to the Internets that I was bored with cooking and needed some inspiration. Over and over, people said "Zucchini!" Zucchini is, apparently, the greatest thing ever, according to everyone. I honestly have only had zucchini here and there, and never in a creative format. Thus, I set out to experiment with zucchini. I consulted my newest cookbook, The Illustrated Quick Cook by Heather Whinney, and found a recipe for sausage-stuffed zucchini, which sounded very Sean-friendly.
I started by splitting 2 zucchini down the middle, then using a melon baller to scoop out the middle. Keep the zucchini middle meat to the side!
Now they look like pea pods!
Sean bought Italian sausage, which is of course delicious, but not what I had in mind. I think it might have given us a mild case of heartburn, so keep this in mind when you do your own sausage-buying.
Preheat the oven to 375 (I think...or it might have been 450...hrm. I'm not very helpful am I?) and brush the zucchini shells with olive oil, then season with salt and pepper.
Meanwhile, saute red onion and minced garlic in a skillet.
Add the zucchini meat (which I forgot to chop up!) and then the sausage meat. When it's good and browned, scoop the mixture into the zucchini shells.
Bake the zucchini shells for about 25 minutes, until they're good and soft.
Then enjoy!
So how was my zucchini adventure? Well, the sausage kind of completely masked the taste of zucchini, so in some ways it was a good place to start and in others, it didn't really enlighten me to the glory that is zucchini. The sausage was also a bit too spicy, but we can try a different type of sausage next time. The hardest part, for me, was coming up with a side dish. We ended up being lazy and just cooking up some potatoes, but I really would like some creative help on this one.
I totally thought that in your skillet those zucchini meat rounds were garlic cloves, and I was like holy crap yall had bad breath!
ReplyDeleteI thought the same thing about the zucchini/garlic! I was thinking, 'more power to you, but goodness...' : )
ReplyDeleteThis looks good.
So I have an awesome zucchini recipe...its zucchini spaghetti. If you have a mandoline slicer, use it, if not, get one! lol. Anyhow, slice the raw zucchini long-ways using the julienne piece (or you can do this all by hand, but make them really thin). Set aside. Do not cook the zucchini before hand, the meat sauce will soften it when you combine them.
ReplyDeleteI make my own homemade sgetti sauce using 1 small can paste, 1 can of chicken stock, seasonings (thyme, rosemary, sage, etc) to taste. I put all that in a small sauce pan to start heating. In a frying pan I brown up meat (I use turkey, but whatever floats your boat works), add in about 3-4 cloves chopped garlic, 1/4 chopped onion, and red pepper flakes to taste (I use two shakes). Combine the sauce with the meat mixture and heat all the way through. Combine the meat sauce with the sliced zucchini and viola, a healthy spaghetti that is SUPER flavorful!