Stuffed Zucchini with Bread Crumbs

Friday was last day of school for the kids. I signed up to make some sandwiches for their classes' last day celebration. Since I'm a sucker for cuteness, I decided to go out of my way to cut the sandwiches in heart shapes and flower shapes with cookie cutters. In result, there were lots of bread crumbs piled up in the kitchen from 2 loaves of bread. Two days later, some of the bread crumbs got stuffed into the zucchinis and squash as part of the dinner (I didn't have enough zucchinis, so I used a yellow squash).

Serves 4

4 small zucchinis
1&1/4 cup of bread crumbs, cubed
3 tablespoons chopped onion
1 clove of garlic, chopped
1 small stalk of green onion, chopped
Black pepper to taste
Tamari sauce / salt to taste
Canola oil
Four cheese Mexican blend

Cook the zucchinis whole in boiling water for about 8 minutes, then take them out to cool a bit. Cut them in halves lengthwise. Scoop out the pulp and chop them. Saute the garlic, onion and green onion until tender in canola oil, then add the pulp and bread crumbs. Add tamari sauce (or salt) and black pepper to taste. Stuff the zucchinis with the bread mixture. Put them on a baking dish lined with foil and bake at 350 F for 20 minutes.

Before the cheese was added to the top.

At about 15 minute mark, sprinkle the Mexican cheese over the top until it's melted, then sprinkle another layer of cheese over. You can turn off the oven at this point and let them stay in the oven for the remaining 5 minutes to let the flavor set in. Take them out and serve.

In the end, the bread crumbs I used in this dish barely made a dent on all those bread crumbs I had, but the dish turned out to be flavorful, thanks to the Mexican cheese. I think the cheese on top needs to be a kind that has some punch to it. Also the zucchinis and the onion added a nice soft crunch to it. By the way, I used a grapefruit spoon to scoop out the pulp. I found it was easier than using a regular spoon.

Oops, almost forgot to take a picture before it was all gone.

We had fried eggs with it, quite a good combination.