Zucchini Boats

It is zucchini season, and everyone I know has refrigerators overflowing with zucchini and squash right now... including myself. Since I shared this recipe with some of my friends over the weekend, I figured it wouldn't hurt to post it because it is a super fast and easy one!

Zucchini Boat is a dish that my dad grew up eating. I learned to make it when I was about 12 or 13 while visiting my grandmother Virginia (Ginny), and my Aunt Diane and Uncle Joe in West Virginia. That was the summer I learned how to make the best Sloppy Joe filling from Aunt Diane, and Grandma showed me how to bake Italian Bread & Pepperoni Rolls, but those recipes will be posted another day.

Ingredients:

3-4 medium Zucchinis (around 12-14 inches)

1lb Italian Sausage (uncased; if you buy the stuff in the casing, you'll have to squeeze the sausage out of each link.)

1/2 c Parmesan cheese

1c bread crumbs (saltine cracker crumbs can be used also)

1 egg

So for the boats....

Preheat your oven to 350 and boil a big pot of water.

Slice 3 or 4 medium (around 12-14 inches) zucchinis in half lengthwise.

Put the sliced zucchinis in the boiling water for about 7 minutes to soften the flesh for scooping.

Drain and set aside so they can cool off before you scoop out the middle.

In a skillet, brown a pound of Italian sausage (the uncased stuff). Drain off excess grease... at this point I'll even pat the ground sausage with a paper towel to get even more of the fat off. Then throw the sausage into a big mixing bowl.

Now, the zucchinis should be cool enough to handle.

Scoop the middles of the zucchini out with a spoon and put it into the mixing bowl with the sausage. tip: don't scoop out too much because the boats will get too thin and collapse, so leave about a 1/2 inch of flesh.

Add a 1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese, and 1 cup bread crumbs and an egg. Stir up the zucchini middles, bread crumbs, cheese, and egg until the breadcrumbs aren't dry anymore.

Place the hollow zucchini on a large baking sheet that has either been drizzled with a little bit of olive oil or has been sprayed with cooking spray.

Spoon the mixture into the hollow zucchini boats. Bake at 350 for about 45 mins. Since the insides are already cooked (except for the egg), the baking is just to get the top crispy and brown, and so the outer zucchini boat gets tender.

xoxo

happy zucchini