I'm sure there's some technical fancy name for this - - but it was just really tasty.. (need to find tomatoes with lower sodium though..)

1 can diced tomatoes (your choice, I picked the ones that have Hunts that have oregano and basil in them)
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbs fresh parsley, chopped
2 tbs fresh basil, chopped
3 med sized zucchini, cut in half lengthwise, then cut in half circles..
4 tbs balsamic vinegar
1/2 tsp olive oil

Put olive oil and garlic in pan, and saute for a few seconds.
Add Zucchini and saute about 10 minutes or so until desired degree of doneness (I like the zucchini still crisp - but others like it more mushy)
Add balsamic vinegar (kinda deglazes the pan a little) wait a few seconds for vinegar to bubble.
Add can of tomatoes and stir til heated thru
Add parsley and basil

Serve

A great addition to thsi would be some fresh parmesean or romano cheese... but alas I had none.. or even some mozarella... but it was incredibly good as is - and I have tons leftover for lunch...

(I figure the entire pan, is less than 200 calories...)





Note on the tomatoes -- i read a bunch of labels and the calorie count differ from manufacturer to manufacter - the ones i picked were 25 calories a serving with 3 servings in the can - other cans were 50 calories per serving some were even higher than that... - these were the soup can sized tomatoes)

Maleficent, I'm beginning to think we are long-lost sisters (that would help to explain the woman who CLAIMS to be my sister!)

This sounds fantastic.

I know this is an old recipe, but I was hoping I could get a question answered.

See, my wife and I planted zucchini in our home garden this year, and now we have more zucchini than we know what to do with! So I found this recipe, and it looks really tasty. What I'm wondering is, do you think it would be possible to add some sort of protein (meat) to this dish? I'm thinking maybe lean ground turkey, or chunks of chicken breast (but we just had chicken last night) Anyone have any other healthy (and tasty!) ideas for how I can get some meat into this meal for dinner tonight?

Last night I made stuffed zucchini:

1/2 lb lean ground beef (but you could use ground turkey if you wanted)
1 med onion
1/2 tbsp olive oil
can of crushed tomatoes
red pepper flakes
garlic
mozzarella cheese.

Take 3 or 4 (depending on how big they are) zucchini and split them in half lengthwise. Use a melon baller or a grapefruit spoon (or just a regular spoon if that's all you have) to scoop them out and make a hollow. Prebake them in a 300 deg oven for about 15 mins.

While they're baking saute the meat, onion, garlic, etc. until done and then add the crushed tomatoes and pepper flakes and cook down until about 1/2 the liquid is gone. You can add anything else you want to the filling - I sometimes add chopped spinach or diced bell pepper - whatever veggies are in the bin. And you can leave out the pepper flakes if you want. I like the extra oomph.

Spoon the filling into the zucchini, top with a little mozzarella and/or parmesan cheese, and return to the oven to bake for another 15 mins or until the cheese is melted and bubbly.

You can eliminate the cheese if you need to watch the fat content - although skim moz is pretty decent on fat content.

mmmmmm, you're reading my mind

I was thinking about stuffed zucchini as well - we have 2 enormous 15in. zucchini currently that I think could be prime for stuffing, I just have been trouble finding a good recipe. I think I might try this one though, seems easy enough for a complete cooking novice like me.

Yeah .. I picked up 2 really big ones at the farmer's market last Saturday specifically so I could stuff and bake them.

Oh, another thing you can do is add some brown rice or couscous to the filling as well. It'll bulk it up a bit and then 1/2 zucchini really is a full meal.

Sounds like a good idea... if I wanted to add brown rice, how should I add it in? boil it, and then mix it with the meat/etc. after its browned?

I bake my brown rice - I use Alton Brown's recipe and leave out the butter. It makes a lot so I usually have leftovers.

So what I'd do is take about a cup of the cooked rice and add it to the browned meat and veg right before I stuff the zucchini - you don't want it to get mushy in the liquid from the tomatoes, so cook those down first, then throw in the rice, mix it all together, and stuff away!

Thanks! I'll let you know how it turns out

As promised, here is my report:

YUM!

Here's what we did:

First thing was to take care of cooking the brown rice since it takes so long to cook. We boiled it (didn't have a baking recipe) - 1 cup dry, which made 3 cups prepared, but I only used 1 cup prepared in the "stuffing".

The rest of the stuffing was lean ground turkey, a yellow onion, a green bell pepper, probably like 1-2 cups of chopped spinnach (I didn't really measure it), and the scooped out contents of 1 of the 2 enormous zucchinis we had, and about 1tsp. minced garlic, and some red pepper flakes (didn't measure, but a decent amount). Oh, and the crushed tomatoes. Only hitch was the amount of time it took, which is only a problem for my impatient wife

Baked it with the mozzerella cheese on top. Our 2 large zucchinis turned into 8 quartered zucchini boats, still quite large. I believe after last nights dinner and lunch today, I still have 4 leftover boats mmmmm this is definately going on my "cook regularly" list. I'm already hoping my zucchini plants will spit out a couple more mutant zucchinis soon

Oh yay - I'm glad they turned out well.

Here's the baked brown rice recipe I use. I actually make this about once a week and use the leftovers throughout the week, but you can cut it in half too. I also don't add the butter in the recipe and sometimes instead of cooking in plain water, I'll use broth or stock or something.

1 1/2 cups brown rice
2 1/2 cups water
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 teaspoon kosher salt

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Place the rice into an 8-inch square glass baking dish.

Bring the water, butter, and salt just to a boil in a kettle or covered saucepan. Once the water boils, pour it over the rice, stir to combine, and cover the dish tightly with heavy-duty aluminum foil. Bake on the middle rack of the oven for 1 hour.