Zucchini Boat of Yum

As always, I went to the farmer's market after my Saturday run.  I stopped at a vendor that had beautiful, vibrantly colored vegetables.  I knew that I couldn't pass up this stand without buying something.  Lucky for me, this vendor had huge, bright green zucchinis for only 50 cents each.  let me just clarify, that when I say huge...I mean HUGE!  It was bigger than the size of my foot and about the size of my forearm.  I would say that 50 cents for the absurdly large zucchini was a steal!

Ok...mine wasn't THAT big.  But it was still pretty big.

I had seen a couple different recipes for zucchini boats and decided to give it a try.  There are many different recipes for zucchini boats, but it essentially has 4 steps: cut the zucchini in half, hollow it out, stuff in with your ingredients, and bake.  Even with the large zucchini that I bought, not a lot of filling was needed (or really fit) into the zucchini.  Actually, I was a little over ambitious with my filling and had some leftover and ate it on the side.

My recipe is using rough estimates because I did not truly measure everything.  It is not a recipe that you will mess up by adding too much of one thing or not enough of another.  It's all about you taste and how you like it!

Zucchini Boat (2 servings per zucchini)
Ingredients:
1 large zucchini
6 bella mushrooms, sliced
1/4 cup yellow onion, diced
basil and garlic salt seasonings
handful of cherry tomatoes (about 8)
3 tbl tomato sauce
1/4 cup mozzarella cheese

Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 400.
2. Cut zucchini in half the long way.

3. Scoop insides out of zucchini.  Some people save the insides to use in their mix. I thought it was zucchini overload, so I tossed them out.  Place zucchini on baking sheet lined with foil.

4. Saute mushrooms and onions with spices for 5 minutes.  Place into bowl.
5. Add tomatoes, tomato sauce, and cheese to bowl.  Mix.
6. Put mixture into zucchini.

7. Bake for 20-30 minutes.

Yummy, cheesy perfection!  I will admit that as good as it was,  I thought that it would be more filling than it turned out to be.  I didn't make anything else to go with it, so I finished my dinner off with some popcorn.  I definitely recommend making something to go with your zucchini.

There are so many different types of zucchini boats. Here are some other great websites that have different flavors/types of zucchini boats incase you want to try something else:

http://www.recipegirl.com/2012/02/13/stuffed-zucchini-boats/

http://www.adashofsass.com/2010/06/22/italian-and-southwestern-zucchini-boats/

http://inthelittleredhouse.blogspot.com/2012/07/how-to-eat-zucchini.html