Zucchini Canoes

Grab and oar and dig in! Or you can skip building the canoe altogether and just chop up the zucchini and add to the sauce mixture and ladle over the rice in a bowl and top with cheese. Either way a mouthful of flavor.

Here is what I did and this is a original recipe.
Ingredients:
2 medium zucchini's
1 clove of garlic minced
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup chopped green pepper
1/3 pound lean ground beef or ground turkey
1 jar of prepared salsa whatever heat level you prefer
1/2 cup grated jack, pepper jack or cheddar cheese or a combo of all
salt and pepper to taste
1 tablespoon bread crumbs if needed for thickening sauce
olive oil

To make the canoes take a zucchini and make a cut about 1 inch from both ends of the zucchini and then make two cuts the length of the squash from the outer edge of the end cuts to the other end. Scoop our the interior of the zucchini and dice and set aside. Leave enough meat at the bottom and the side of zucchini to hold the mixture.
Add a small amount of olive oil to a pan and add the meat, garlic, green pepper and onion. Saute till meat is done then add the diced zucchini and salsa. Simmer the zucchini just a few minutes until tender. Season with salt and pepper and add the bread crumbs is needed.
Pack the zucchini's with the mixture and top with some of the grated cheese leaving some cheese for serving.
Put the canoe's in a 8x8 glass baking pan sprayed with cooking spray. Bake at 350 degree's for approximately forty minutes or until the zucchini's are tender and the cheese is bubbly and browned. Remove from oven add extra cheese over the top. Serve rice along side and scoop the remainder of sauce over the rice. Or you can use the bowl method I mentioned at the top of the page.

I did not make the chocolate zucchini bread yesterday as I spent most of the day in the back yard area. One project seemed to lead to another. I even decided to revamp a couple tired looking bird houses. They are now hanging from trees in their new rusty red color.
So today the bread is happening in my kitchen. I sure love good smells coming from the kitchen. My mother was always cooking or baking something wonderful. Growing up on a farm we had much summer produce and what was not eaten fresh had to be canned, frozen or made into jam or somehow preserved. It was a lot of hard work that my Mother took as a blessing. It was so important for her to provide healthy good food for her family.
I was walking home from school one stifling hot day the school year had just started. The smell of blackberries overwhelmed me as I walked up the driveway. I walked through the kitchen door and there was Mom standing at the stove. It was sweltering in the kitchen but there she was in one of her cute little aprons humming away while stirring a huge cauldron of blackberry jam. I went to the fridge and poured a glass of ice cold kool-ade and Mom loaded up a piece of bread with warm jam and handed it to me. I sat at the kitchen table with the fan blowing in my face and jam dotting my chin. Oh I was a happy girl.

If I am walking that river trail today I had better get moving. The sun was out bright and early this morning so the heat will be coming quickly.

Tomorrow I will not be making dinner as the hubby and I are going for a late lunch early dinner. We have a place we like to go that has an nice outdoor space where you can observe the side walk action. We love to people watch and be outdoors. Rarely will you find us indoors when the weather is nice. We always seem to find something to do outside. Even if there is nothing to do how nice it is to sit under the patio umbrella and thumb through a magazine or read a book or stare into space. Seems the older I get the more I do that not consciously though.
Enjoy the great day.