Stuffed Zucchini
Friday, July 26, 2013
It’s a challenge sometimes to figure out what to do with all the zucchini our garden is producing this year. We share it with friends and family. We share it with our livestock. But, whenever possible, we like to eat it. At least, some of us do.
For some reason, not one of our children likes zucchini. This makes me very sad. I have had some success finely shredding it and sneakily adding it to spaghetti sauce, but sometimes I just have to say “Too bad, we’re having zucchini for dinner. If you don’t like it, go scramble an egg for yourself or something.”
Tonight, I chose to make Stuffed Zucchini for dinner. This is a favorite of mine for those oversized zucchini that like to take over the garden when you have to be out of town for a few days. Little zucchini are best thinly sliced and fried in butter with some salt and pepper. Mmm. That’s hard to do with the giant zucchini, though.
I didn’t measure anything tonight. This “recipe” is very flexible. Have some fun with it.
Ingredients:
1 Really Big Zucchini
1 egg
1/2 white onion, diced
Minced garlic
Your favorite sausage
1 can of diced tomatoes
Non-stick cooking spray
Shredded cheese
Preheat oven to 400°F. Spray a baking pan with non-stick spray. Slice the giant zucchini lengthwise, taking care with the curve of the squash so that you cut it in a manner that will allow each half to lie flat. Cut the stem and bud off the ends. Scoop out the insides of the zucchini and place in your mixing bowl. Place the shells in your baking dish. If your zucchini isn’t as big as mine, you can also use 2 or 3 medium zucchini in the same manner. Cover the zucchini shells with foil and place in the oven to warm up while you prepare the filling.
Cut up all your zucchini innards into chunks in the mixing bowl. I also had to cut a couple of inches off my zucchini to make it fit in my baking dish, so I diced the ends up and added those to the bowl as well. Dice up your onion and add to the bowl, and mix all of this together. I like to use my Bosch Mixer and cookie paddles for this job. Add your egg, a tablespoon or so of minced garlic, and roughly a pound or so of sausage. I happened to have link sausage today so I removed it from the casings. Normally I would probably use bulk sausage and save myself the trouble of dealing with casings. Mix all this up.
The mixture is pretty wet and hard to work with at this point. Most stuffed zucchini recipes call for dried bread crumbs, and I suppose I could have used gluten free bread crumbs since I happen to have some at the moment, but it’s not something I usually keep on hand so I wanted to try something else. I put approximately 1/3 cup or so of gluten free corn meal and maybe 1/2 cup or 3/4 cup of gluten free rolled oats. Basically I just added enough dry grain-based ingredients until the consistency of the mixture was thick enough to be able to be molded and mounded on my zucchini.
Carefully remove the now-warm zucchini shells from the oven and set the foil aside for a moment. Equally divide the sausage mixture to fill each zucchini shell. In a container, mix the can of diced tomatoes with a couple of tablespoons of Italian seasoning and a tablespoon or so of minced garlic. Mix together and spoon over the stuffed zucchini. Spray your non-stick spray on the underside of your foil, and cover your zucchini back up being careful not to burn yourself on the hot baking pan. Place back into the oven for 40 minutes, or until the sausage mixture is thoroughly cooked. A meat thermometer might come in handy here.
Remove the foil and add the shredded cheese of your choice. If you need to be dairy free, try the Daiya brand Mozerella-Style shreds (and also double-check your sausage for dairy ingredients). I used some shredded monterey jack cheese and what was left of a package of “italian style” shredded cheese mix. Place back into the oven, uncovered, for another 7 minutes or so. I also put a can of parmesean on the table for those who wanted to add even more cheese.
The verdict? Even the kids ate it. Well, they didn’t eat their zucchini shells, but at least they ate the stuffing. Considering their hatred for all things related to squash, I consider that a win.
I do think the recipe would be as good or better with a jar of (or some home made) marinara sauce on top instead of a can of tomatoes. It also would have been better if I’d sautéed the onion in some olive oil before mixing it into the filling.
We served this with green beans from our garden, cooked with onion and bacon (we’ll post that recipe in the future!). There was way more food here than the 5 of us could eat. I would say this recipe would serve 6-8, more if you have substantial side dishes available. I packed some in a freezer bag and it remains to be seen whether this will work as a quick “microwave meal” in the future.
