I have a small garden where I plant what I feel are my essentials... tomatoes, summer squash, peppers, more tomatoes, hot pepper and zucchini. As anyone else who has ever planted zucchini, you end up having more than you can use, so you have to start getting creative with what you cook. In addition to being plentiful sometimes they grow 12 inches in one night... slight exaggeration, but zucchini is one of those examples where smaller tends to be better. So, what to do with plentiful, over sized zucchini? Stuff 'em! I took three over sized specimens tonight and did just that!

I started with concocting the stuffing, mainly from leftover stuff and this is roughly the recipe:

1 medium onion, diced
4 cloves minced garlic
1 1/2 cups brown rice, cooked
2 ears of corn, kernels cut off
1 bell pepper, diced
1 can cannelloni beans
1 T cayenne pepper
1 T dried basil
spaghetti sauce
  1. Saute onions with garlic until onions are translucent.
  2. Combine onions with right, corn, pepper, beans, spices and approx 1/2 cup of spaghetti sauce
  3. Cut the zucchini lengthwise, remove seeds and blanch the zucchini for 1 minute.
  4. In a large baking dish, put approx 1 cup of water, then lay zucchini halves in. Fill each zucchini with stuffing. using approx another cup of spaghetti sauce, cover the stuffed zucchini.
  5. Cover Pan with aluminum foil, cutting a couple slits in it to allow steam to escape.
  6. Bake at 375 for approx 30 minutes - serve.

It was really good. With my next batch of over sized zucchini, I might try a Mexican twist and instead use black beans, cilantro, salsa and of course some hot peppers for good measure.