Stuffed Zucchini with Pesto Couscous

On Monday night we made these cute stuffed zucchini for dinner. Because we still had four of the little 8-ball zucchini in our fridge from Week 9, I didn't want to pass up the chance to try something like this. It was not a difficult recipe but involved several steps so it definitely took some time.

I ended up feeling like a lot of the work for this dish was just for the added "awww" factor of the little zucchini bowls to hold everything, because I only ate a little bit of my zucchini shell. I would just as soon have shredded the whole zucchini and made a variation of the couscous to eat on its own. Steve ate his whole zucchini, so he disagrees with me here. But then again, I think I may have under-roasted the bowls (partly because I was rushing to get it ready). If they had been softer, I might have been more on-board with the whole concept.  But you have to admit, they are pretty cute!

Stuffed Zucchini with Pesto Couscous on Dishing up the Dirt

Used From Our CSA
8-ball zucchini
sweet corn
cherry tomatoes

basil (not from our CSA, but Steve picked it from the garden at his work. Win!)

Thoughts on the Recipe
Since I only had 4 of these zucchini and the recipe calls for 6, I two-thirds-ed the recipe. It made for some clunky conversions so I approximated just about everything. We were also a little short on basil, so it could have used more pesto. But no harm done with the final product.

No side dish on these plates, because I ran out of time to make anything else!

What are your thoughts on stuffed zucchini? To eat or not to eat the roasted shell? Would you rather go to the trouble, or just make the filling as a dish on its own?

Zucchini Tomato Gratin

Like I explained the other day, my goal this week was to try and be a good kid while Steve was away (he'll be home tonight - yayyyy!) and cook at least a few dinners and lunches for myself. A noble endeavor, when my alternative may have been relying on Lean Cuisines and/or take-out for 5 days/10 meals - ick. Especially on a weeknight cooking a meal for myself, by myself, isn't high on the list of things I'd love to be doing, so that made this zucchini tomato gratin dish a great fit because it was super quick and easy.

My only problem with this recipe is that it wasn't really a recipe - more of a "throw in some of this, and this, and maybe this too, and then 'bake' it". Not that that's a bad thing at all, but it makes my poor little diligent-recipe-following, culinarily uncreative, Type-A head explode a little bit. How much zucchini? How much cheese? How long should I set my timer for!? Gaahhh, what if I MESS IT UP!!?

Intuition in the kitchen (ha, rhyming) is way more in Steve's realm, so if he had been around he could have reigned me in a bit. But in any case, the worst thing that ended up happening was that the ratio of vegetables to cheese & breadcrumbs was way low. Like, embarrassingly low, if you compare her gratin pictures to mine. But hey, thanks in part to all that cheese and breadcrumb action: IT TASTED GREAT.

Zucchini Tomato Gratin on Proud Italian Cook

Used From Our CSA8-ball zucchini

I also could have used the white onions that came in our Week 8 box, but I so love Vadalia onions, therefore I didn't want to sub those out. And of course we are getting cherry tomatoes next week (go figure), but this time around they had to come from the store.

Thoughts on the Recipe
- Since we don't have any oven-safe skillets at home, I used a medium-size Pyrex dish for this, which worked fine.
- I just used the various cheeses and breadcrumbs that we had on hand, which didn't match her recommendations, but thankfully for me this kind of meal is very forgiving, as I learned.
- I would definitely make this again, and next time I won't be so nervous about getting it wrong. I would also up the vegetable factor for sure, to stretch it a bit farther, because it makes great leftovers.