How to make zucchini boats?

Name: Stuffed Zucchini Boats
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 40 min
Total time: 50 min
Ingredients: 3 Zucchini about 10" / 30cm; 1 lb / 500g Minced meat; 1 teaspoon Mustard; ½ teaspoon Salt; ½ teaspoon Paprika; 2 cloves Garlic; 3½ oz / 100g Gouda; 2 oz / 50g Parmesan; ½ Purple onion (diced); 4 Mushroom (sliced)

How to make stuffed zucchini: Wash the zucchinis then cut them into half and to the size of the tray we use to bake them. Carve the seeds out of the halved zucchinis. It doesn't have to be nice looking as it will be filled anyway. Mix the meat with our favorite spices and herbs for the filling. Fill up the zucchini boats. Top them with grated cheese of choice. Our favorite is the Gouda. Add different type of cheese for a bit more fun. Parmesan can be a great company for any dish. Sprinkle some diced purple onion on top and maybe a couple of slices of mushrooms. Bake it for about 40 minutes or untilu00a0 the cheese gets a golden brown color.

Stuffed Zucchini Boats - Taco Zucchini boats

Stuffing a zucchini is as easy as it looks. A bit of minced meat with some grated cheese and there is a healthy yet delicious dinner on the table!

Zucchini AKA as courgette or summer squash is a type of squash that can grow to 3 feet / 1m. It belongs to that group where everyone knows what it is but in reality, it’s something else.

As we continuously find it at the vegetable section in the shops, we would think of it as a vegetable but botanically it is a fruit. It’s much easier to accept pumpkins as fruits since some are quite on the sweet side and we tend to categorize everything that is sweet as fruits and that is not sweet, something else.

Probably this is why avocados aren’t in our fruit shopping list either but technically belong there, too. The reason, zucchini isn’t sweet is not because the lack of sugar in squash in general but because zucchini is harvested when still immature.

Basically, we eat the baby squash much like piglets are served at Christmas but without an apple. Zucchinis are the best when they still have flowers on the vine. Best of all, the flowers are edible too and consumed as a delicacy stuffed with various goodies.

Zucchinis, as all squashes are native to the Americas but their history is much more interesting then just being a down to Earth vegetable/fruit.

As squashes were brought all over the world after the conquest of America a couple of seeds fell into Italian soil, as well. Throughout the years with care and attention only the Italians could provide for food, zucchini was cultivated and used locally.

When the Italians immigrated to the United States in the 19^th century, they brought a couple of seeds of their favorite food with them, as well. Lucky for them because the kind of squash wasn’t the same squash that sailed forth to conquer the world years before.

So, it came that the zucchini was introduced into American soil and spread across the continent with Italian recipes. It seems though that its spread is unstoppable viciously taking over traditional native dishes and forming them into its own face like the taco zucchini boat.

It’s much more to do with nowadays popular diets and fitness regimes than the aggressiveness of the plant itself though. Due to the zucchinis low carb content, it is a very popular choice for those on low carbohydrate diet, like keto.

Zucchinis are made into spaghetti shapes by slicing them up for salads or pasta substitutes, shredded, pureed, baked, cooked or just plainly eaten raw in salads.

As it is edible raw, it doesn’t require much cooking time but the desired texture is up to personal preferences which could take long hours in the oven to satisfy. In turn, a frying pan with a bit of oil or butter would allow as much less freedom -let alone stuffing- but provides much quicker results.

Stuffing zucchinis is probably as old technique as zucchini cultivation itself and has no exact rule, we can stuff anything in there that we like to see on our plate. Even taco as it is getting a popular choice recently, however taco itself is a corn or wheat tortilla stuffed with basically anything edible.

Preparing the dish is somewhat quick like most of the oven prepared meals as the heavy lifting is done by the dry heat of the oven but the process itself could be excruciatingly long if we are after a quick meal.

Ingredients:

3 Zucchini about 10″ / 30cm
1lb / 500g Minced meat
- 1 teaspoon Mustard
- ½ teaspoon Salt
- ½ teaspoon Paprika
- 2 cloves Garlic
3½ oz / 100g Gouda
2 oz / 50g Parmesan
½ Purple onion (diced)
4 Mushroom (sliced)

How to make stuffed zucchini:

Wash the zucchinis then cut them into half and to the size of the tray we use to bake them.
Carve the seeds out of the halved zucchinis. It doesn’t have to be nice looking as it will be filled, anyway.
Mix the meat with our favorite spices and herbs for the filling.
Fill up the zucchini boats.
Top them with grated cheese of choice. Our favorite is the Gouda.
Add different types of cheese for a bit more fun. Parmesan can be a great company for any dish.
Sprinkle some diced purple onion on top and maybe a couple of slices of mushrooms.
Bake it for about 40 minutes or until the cheese gets a golden brown color.