Stuffed Zucchini - Vegetarian Style

As you can tell from my posts, I am not exactly what you'd call a "vegetarian" cook... i.e. so many recipes call for Italian sausage, or pork tenderloin, etc.!  A friend of my daughters is vegetarian and has come over for dinner on several different occasions, so I have had to come up with some meatless dishes.  I have to say, this one came out really yummy and I finally made something without pasta!

All the ingredients were things I had on hand:

½ a Vidalia onion, chopped

a handful of mushrooms, chopped

3 cloves of garlic, chopped

1 tbs butter

2 Zucchini

roasted red peppers

cherry tomatoes

cheese for the topping

croutons

shredded cheese

Parmesan cheese

olive oil

basil

salt and pepper

Chop up your onion, mushrooms and garlic.  Slice the zucchini lengthwise and with a melon baller or spoon, scrape out a "trough" down the center.  Set the scrapings aside as they will go into the stuffing.

Saute the onion and garlic in a small amount of butter.  When they become transparent, add the mushrooms and the scrapings from your zucchini.

Time to throw in a handful of croutons and about ½ cup of some sort of shredded cheese. 

The croutons will absorb the extra liquid.  Sprinkle in some dried basil, salt and pepper, and a little Parmesan cheese.

I began with a slice of roasted red pepper....

Next I add the stuffing, followed by the cherry tomatoes....

Now, I had this really yummy basil and garlic cheese that I sliced and put on top, but please feel free to use whatever you have on hand (anything except American cheese!  I think that would ruin the flavor!)

Pop into a 375 degree oven for about 20 minutes, or until the zucchini is tender.

This was absolutely delicious as is, but I think it would be interesting if you got a bit adventurous and drizzled the tops with either some kind of pasta sauce or even a little bit of Caesar dressing...go for it!

As with all of my meals, I hope you know that you can always substitute or eliminate ingredients if you don't have them.  As long as you use the herbs/garlic/onion/crouton mixture (which are the basic flavors), you could add meat , different cheeses, or other veggies....absolutely.  Experiment!