Stuffed Zuchinni

This dish was fun for the whole family... Sydney helped with all of the stuffing! (check out pics here!)

Stuffed Zucchini: Cut the zucchini in half and scoop the flesh out of each half with a spoon. Rub the halves with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 15-20 minutes until they get soft. Meanwhile, put the flesh you scooped out of the zucchini in a paper towel and squeeze the water out. Take one link of hot sausage (or about a 1/3 pound of bulk sausage) and remove the casing. Sautee with onions, garlic and the zucchini guts. (You could also add any other kind of veggies that you have lying around, tomatoes would be good!) Once the meat is cooked, push it all to one side of the pan and add some bread crumbs to the empty side. Toast them until they turn golden brown and then stir in with the meat and veggies. I also threw in a huge pile of fresh chopped parsely at this point. Place some cheese (I used cheddar) in the base of the zucchini boats. Fill with stuffing and then top with more cheese. I threw them under a low broiler for about 4 minutes until the cheese was bubbly, but you can also bake them @ 350 for 10 minutes or so... just be careful they don't dry out. Verdict: Sydney enjoyed helping, but would not even taste them. (there goes THAT theory!). Mario and I enjoyed and I am looking forward to enjoying again for lunch today!

Summer on a plate

Now this meal was freaking awesome. Fresh tomatoes, onions and basil ( T and O from C.S.A. box, basil from my parent's garden), beets generously supplied by my mom and then ravioli with pesto and greenbeans. YUMMY. It was even better b/c we really didn't have any food in the house so it seemed sort of miraculous that this came together so easily and was so good.

Ravioli with pesto and greenbeans: I put a bag of frozen mini ravioli on to cook and then tossed the trimmed green beans into the water with them. Tossed with the dregs of my last batch of pesto and added some fresh parmesan. Verdict: Everyone loved it. NO LEFTOVERS!

On a sidenote: Sydney did not eat the beets although she did manage to stain her little fingers pretty well. She also would not touch the tomatoes. HOWEVER, later that evening while helping me water the plants she consumed every single cherry tomato off of my plants... red AND green.

Potato Salad

A few weeks back we got some new potatoes from the C.S.A. box. In addition, we got a whole bag of taters that my dad grew as an experiment. So I created the yummy pasta salad seen above.

potatoes (chopped and boiled)
zuchinni and spring onions (from C.S.A. box)
grainy dijon mustard
fresh thyme (from C.S.A. box)
white vinegar (all we had in the house... I NEED to go shopping!)
olive oil
paprika
salt, pepper and a pinch of sugar

Verdict: It was pretty good for something that I threw together without a recipe. The whole family, toddler included, enjoyed it!