Recipe Test: Zucchini Boats

Credit: prouditaliancook.com

click here for the full recipe

INGREDIENTS:

• Zucchini
• Garlic
• Olive oil
• Salt & Pepper
• Grape tomatoes
• Bread crumbs
• Mozzarella
• Parmesan

I saw this recipe and in my effort to eat more vegetables I thought 'Perfect! A whole dinner made of veggies!'.   The zucchini were pretty easy to slice in half and scoop out the middles.  They are small enough they fit 4 in the baking dish.  

I felt like I was making ants on a log as I put on the tomatoes.  They were pretty damn cute ... here they are headed into the oven. 

As they cooked for the first part (you have to add cheese and then broil) I had time to clean up the kitchen and make a side salad.  As I said ... a dinner made of almost all veggies!  

Green leaf, red leaf and romaine lettuce, some fresh cilantro leaves, half an avocado, grape tomatoes and a few pumpkin seeds and pine nuts for crunch!    Toss it all in homemade ranch dressing and ready to go: 

Once the 'boats' were done I put on the diced mozzarella and threw it under the broiler just until it was bubbly and turning golden.  I must say ... I think anything is better with cheese on it.  

Hubby was "in" ... he's in for what I'm cooking more than out now and he seems to really look forward to dinner each night.  He comes up to the kitchen while I'm cooking to check in and peek at what I'm making.  Him feeling more 'cared for' as a husband is one side effect of this journey I never expected.  I figured he'd be way too stubborn to ever go with what I was cooking but there is one big factor that has come into play that I didn't expect ... we are actually SAVING MONEY by doing this.  I figured shopping almost all at Whole Foods would be a huge amount more than HyVee but it hasn't been.  You see those packaged foods add up fast as does all that soda.   Not to mention you always end up grabbing something extra when you don't have a plan for what you are going to eat.  Now when I go I know exactly what I need and exactly how much.  He's noticed a difference already but I'd like to go through our credit card history and compare say three months of restaurant / HyVee costs to three months of restaurant / Whole Foods costs ... a blog post for another day ... anyway here's dinner.  

Hubby went back and ate the last three even though he said he thought that they were "a little bland".  Honestly I didn't think they were bland at all but just enough seasoning.  I think maybe that's a difference between his taste buds (still eating out for lunch, eating packaged snacks and drinking soda) to my readjusted ones.  I taste the vegetables ... it's so weird to say that but I never really felt like veggies had much of a taste.  I guess my taste buds were too fried from all the salt, sugar and other additives.  I genuinely like vegetables now.  The last few dinners that I've made - pasta, polenta and quinoa felt like they didn't have enough veggies!  How strange ... and barely over one month into this journey of mine.  Such a big change!  

PS - it is seriously funny to me that spell check wants to change quinoa to Joaquin!