Sausage Stuffed Zucchini Boats

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Wow, sorry for the absence of posts!  It has been a super busy summer for us and I have devoted almost every second of my time to my kids and having fun.  Once baseball season ended for my son, I took all 3 kids (ages 9, 7, and 5) on a road trip to my home state of Texas all by myself (I live in Utah now).  Family and friends, including my husband, thought I was nuts wanting to do this but we had a blast.  My last 4 trips home have been for funerals and I really needed to go on a fun trip home to Texas.  I wanted to show my kids that it is actually fun there!  We had such a great time visiting family and made so many wonderful memories.  The rest of the summer has been spent camping, swimming, and playing with cousins and friends.  I love summer! 

We planted our very first garden this year not expecting it to be great but it has flourished and is just beautiful!  We planted cucumber, zucchini, acorn squash, lemon cucumber, jalapenos, green peppers, tomatoes, watermelon, and pumpkin.  Much to our surprise we are being bombarded with all of these delicious vegetables and fruits!  We definitely learned our lesson to only plant 1 zucchini plant, though.  We planted 2 and have it coming out of our ears!!!  We have eaten it grilled, fried, roasted, sauteed, and in sweets and there's more coming. 

When I was growing up my mom used to make what she called Zucchini Boats and I LOVED them!  Unfortunately she has passed away and I never got her recipe from her.  I made this one up from memory and I think I did a great job.  These were so so good and even my kids ate them.  Only my youngest claims to like zucchini so when the older 2 said that it was "pretty good" I was happy with myself.  I hope you love them as much as we did! 

SAUSAGE STUFFED ZUCCHINI BOATS
serves 4-6 adults

Ingredients:

4-5 medium sized zucchini (I used 2 ½  huge ones)
1 lb ground pork sausage
1 small onion, finely diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 C shredded mozzarella cheese
2 TB chopped fresh parsley
1 large tomato, seeded and diced
1 large egg, beaten
Salt and Pepper to taste
1 C Italian breadcrumbs
4 TB melted butter
1/3 C shredded parmesan

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375°.  Brown and crumble sausage in a skillet over medium heat.  When sausage is almost cooked through add the onion and garlic and continue cooking until sausage is done and onions are transparent.  Drain grease from sausage mixture and allow to cool. 

Meanwhile, slice zucchini in half lengthwise.  Using a spoon, scoop out the insides, leaving about ¼ inch of the flesh.  Don’t scoop all the way to the ends as you want to make it a “boat” shape so the filling stays put. 

Save about half of the scooped out flesh and discard the rest.  In a large bowl combine scooped out zucchini, cooled sausage mixture, mozzarella cheese, parsley, tomato, and egg. 

Place zucchini boats into a 9x13 pan (may have to use 2 pans) and add just enough water to the pan to cover the bottom of it.  Add salt and pepper to the boats to taste then add sausage filling to them.  Don’t be shy, fill them up! 

In a small bowl, combine melted butter, breadcrumbs, and parmesan.  Add this mixture to the top of the sausage mixture and pat down.  This will form a delicious crust while baking. 

Carefully place the pans into the oven because you don’t want to slosh any water onto the zucchini boats.

Bake for 40 minutes in the preheated oven.  If you want the crust extra crispy, turn on your broiler for the last 5 minutes of cooking time. 

Enjoy! 

Chicken with Yellow Rice and Sausage

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Here's a great one pot dinner that is delicious! Check out my tips and suggestions at the bottom of the recipe.

CHICKEN AND YELLOW RICE WITH SAUSAGE

This one only takes about 10-15 minutes of prep time, then you put the lid on and let the rice cook. So in actual start to finish time it's 40 minutes, but your part is over after 10.

2 TB olive oil
2 skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cut into cubes
1 lb sausage (chorizo, kielbasa), cut into 1/2 moons
1 onion, diced chunky
1 red bell pepper, cut into bite sized strips
10 oz yellow rice mix
1 1/2 cups frozen peas
S&P

Using a large pot with a lid or Dutch oven, drizzle olive oil and cook the chicken, sausage, pepper, and onion on med-high heat for 3-5 minutes. (will finish cooking later) Add about 3/4 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp pepper-or more or less-whatever you like.
Add the yellow rice mix and as much water as the mix calls for (usually 20 oz of water). Once the water boils, put the lid on and turn the heat down to low and cook according to the rice directions (about 20-25 minutes).
When the rice is done, stir in the frozen peas and serve.

Tips & Suggestions:
* I like to use turkey kielbasa when I can find it to lower the fat. You can hardly tell a difference!
* My favorite chicken to use for this is shredded or cut up rotisserie chicken. I love buying those chickens because they usually are enough for 2 meals. Or I throw a couple of chicken breasts and a little water in the crock pot with some seasoning (poultry, salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder) and shred it when it is done. If you use pre-cooked chicken just add it in when you add the rice.
* Sometimes it can take 30 minutes for the rice to get done all the way. Just check it at 25 minutes and see if it needs more time.
* It goes very well with cornbread!

Pasta with Sausage and Peppers

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I whipped this up the other night with no recipe and it turned out so good! I had seen these Chicken with Spinach and Asiago Cheese sausages at Sam's and thought they looked good. They'd been sitting in my freezer for a while and I needed to use them. This recipe would work with any kind of smoked sausage really. You could use turkey sausage, pork kielbasa or Sam's actually had lots of other flavors of chicken sausage. This is an easy, quick, flavorful dinner! I took these pictures with our new camera and love how they turned out!

PASTA WITH SAUSAGE AND PEPPERS

Ingredients:

1 TB olive oil
Approx 1-1.5 lb smoked sausage, sliced (I used 6 links, not sure how much it was exactly)
2 bell peppers, any color (I used red and green)
1 medium onion, sliced
1 lb penne rigate pasta
1 jar prepared alfredo sauce (Newman's Own or Bertolli are my faves)

Start cooking pasta according to package directions and when it's done, drain and set aside. Meanwhile in a large skillet or pot heat olive oil over medium high heat. Add sausage, peppers and onions and saute for about 15 min or until onions are caramalized and peppers are soft. Add alfredo sauce and heat through, scraping up browned bits from bottom of pan. Add pasta and mix well. Serve!

Doesn't this look pretty?


You want it to have some good color on it like this: