Recipe: Panzanella Stuffed Zucchini Boats {Take Me To My Tuscan Villa & Feed Me These Vego Delights!}

Summary: Sometimes a recipe is born from indecision. I had all the right ingredients for panzanella salad except I had zucchinis instead of cucumbers. Panzanella is basically a stale bread and tomato salad from Tuscany. It may sound fancy but it’s really a peasant dish. I decided to stuff my zucchinis with ingredients that tasted like a panzanella salad and make a combo – perfect! As it turns out, this is the nicest stuffed zucchini I have ever had! Mr Ask was in quick agreement and demolished his in seconds. I wish I got prettier pictures but the smell from the oven was so good and I forgot to take a pic with the side salad because eating was on our minds! As luck would have it, some of my best recipes have pants photos, c’est la vie! But OMG these are so good! This is now on our regular rotation. I guess you can’t beat a classic combo…

Ingredients

• 2 large zucchini’s
• 4-6 cherry tomatoes
• 1 small red onion
• 2 slices of good bread
• 1 tsp balsamic vinegar
• 2 tsp garlic olive oil
• 1 tsp dried Italian herbs
• 1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan
• Salt & pepper, to taste

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 180C and line a baking tray with foil.
2. Cut the zucchini’s in half lengthwise and use a spoon to scoop out the flesh. You want to leave about 6mm or 1/4 of flesh in each zucchini boat. Place the zucchini boats on a baking tray and set aside. Chop up the scooped out zucchini flesh and add it a medium mixing bowl but discard any mushy or overly seedy flesh.
3. Chop the tomatoes into quarters, finely dice the onion and cut the bread into small pieces and add to the zucchini bowl. Add in the vinegar, oil, herbs, cheeses, salt and pepper. Stir well to combine. Lightly squeeze the mix together, to compact it a little, for easy filling.
4. Fill up your zucchini boats, packing the filling in well but being gentle. You will have extra filling but don’t let it go to waste! Fold the extra filling mix up in a piece of lightly greased foil, nice and secure, and place it on the tray too. When everyone clamours for seconds, you can feed them the extra or maybe keep it as a cook treat…
5. Bake for 30 mins or until the zucchinis are tender and filling is golden brown. Serves 2 with a salad on the side.