For this brand spanking new year, I am trying my best to make changes to my diet and health. One of the big changes I am making is incorporating more vegetables into my diet. There are certain veggies, I just don’t care for! One of those is zucchini. But I think it is important to try to get myself used to eating things I don’t like, for their health benefits. So I have found the perfect recipe to break me in easy. This recipe has lots of tasty stuff, that should distract me from the yucky squash.

Ingredients:

3/4 tablespoon butter
3/4 tablespoon olive oil
3 cups crusty bread cubes
2 teaspoons minced fresh garlic
2 zucchini
3/4 tablespoon butter
3/4 tablespoon olive oil
1 1/2 cups chopped plum (Roma) tomatoes
1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh rosemary
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
1 egg, beaten

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).

Melt 3/4 tablespoon butter with 3/4 tablespoon olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Cook bread cubes in the butter mixture, tossing gently to coat, until fragrant and toasted, 3 to 4 minutes. Add garlic to the bread; cook and stir together for 1 minute. Remove to a plate and set aside to cool.

Slice zucchini lengthwise with stem and flower ends intact. Use a small spoon to hollow out squash, leaving a 1/4-inch shell. Place squash boats in a large baking dish. Coarsely chop zucchini innards.

Melt 3/4 tablespoon butter with 3/4 tablespoon olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Cook and stir zucchini innards, tomatoes, rosemary, salt, and pepper in the butter mixture until the vegetables soften, 3 to 4 minutes; transfer to a large bowl and mix with the bread cubes, Cheddar cheese, and beaten egg. Fill the hollowed zucchini halves with the vegetable mixture. Arrange stuffed zucchini boats into a baking dish.

Bake in preheated oven for 25 minutes. Remove and switch oven to broil. Cook under the broiler until golden brown and bubbling on top, 2 to 3 minutes.

I am so excited to try this recipe out! Wish me luck.

-Michele

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 6th, 2013 at 11:55 pm and is filed under Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.