Stuffed Zucchini

Came home from camping this past weekend to find our garden busting, after just 2 days of not picking!

It had pretty much been busting all the previous week.  For the record: lots of rain this season but especially mid-August, alternating with super warm sunny days. Only thing not impressed with still being the peppers :-/


Anyway, to get to the point of this blog, I had those two huge zucchini I figured would be great for stuffing. I decided to do it a little differently because after what I ate camping and wining all weekend I really did not want to use breadcrumbs in this meal. Ok, so cut zucchini in half lengthwise, scooped out the seeds and placed hollow side up in a baking dish with some olive oil on the bottom. Chopped up in 1/4-1/2 inch pieces: 5 small white skinned eggplant (from our garden), 1/2 yellow bell pepper, 1/4 vidalia onion, 4 cloves garlic and 3 small tomatoes (from our garden, de-seaded). Sauteed that with some olive oil, fresh rosemary, oregano and basil from my lil herb garden (see picture here) and threw in a dash of red wine that had pretty much gone to vinager in my cabinet (Hopkins "Sachem's Picnic", which I was just told this weekend when we visited the vineyard that I should keep that in the fridge... oops, I'll know for next time, this is one I buy frequently).  Let that cook down over medium heat. Now, how did I avoid the breadcrumbs, you ask? Quinoa!! After that yummy concoction cooked down and my veggies were all translucent, my tomatoes pretty much a sauce at this point, I added 1 cup of cooked quinoa and 1/4 cup of parmesan cheese. Mixed together, sea salt and peppered it, stuffed my zucchini, topped each with a sprinkle of sharp cheddar and threw those babies in the oven at 400 degrees (cover loosely with foil so cheese doesn't burn for first 15 min then take off for last 5 min to brown a lil) I always shut the oven off a little before the time I intend to cook the food for; the oven remains hot enough to finish cooking the food but your gas/electricity are not running anymore. I shut off the oven, gave my kids a ride 2 miles down the road, came back, perfect!
I'd like to add, you could do this without the cheese and it would be vegan. This is what I should have done; between the cheese platter we ate earlier in the day and this I woke up with asthma last night :-/
On the other hand, if you are NOT vegetarian, I must say a few slices of cooked, crumbled up bacon would have complimented this stuffing well! But in that case, remember to go easy on the sea salt.
Hope you try this, it was awesome!