Not sure about your kids and family, but finding healthy things that everyone enjoys can be rough. When given the choice for dinner, one son would choose pizza, another mac n’ cheese and the husband brownies…no joke, I’m sure I could have an entire post on the amount of chocolate he eats…so I’m constantly trying to find new ways to make healthy foods delicious and not obviously healthy (yes, you heard me right, I trick all three of them).
The other day I was lucky enough to have a co-worker bring me the biggest vegetables I’ve ever seen, all fresh and straight from her garden. I grabbed up a zucchini, Arminian cucumber, and some lemon cucumbers (not pictured).
Now…what to do with a 2 1/2′ zucchini or cucumber, you ask? Well…I came up with a super easy recipe (half borrowed from Pinterest, half Kristin creation) that both husband and kiddos loved! Shocking, I know! And so Zucchini Bowls have now found a place in our recipe box.
Disclaimer: One thing you will learn from me is that I hardly ever follow a recipe step by step or ingredient by ingredient. When someone asks for one of my recipes it tends to go a little like “a pinch of that…and sometimes a pinch of this…”. For the sanity of the recipe followers out there, I will try my best to give exacts whenever I come up with something delish! I apologize in advance for the times I don’t!
Zucchini Bowls:
- Cut a zucchini into 2-3″ rounds, making sure that the bottoms are flat, and scoop out inside. (I used a melon ball scooper) Set each bowl on a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
- Dice one medium white onion and one green bell pepper and sauté over medium heat until soft in 1 TBSP olive oil
- In another pan, brown one lb ground turkey
- Add bell pepper and onion to turkey once browned (you can do this all in pan however, we buy ground turkey in bulk and freeze so I separate so it cooks more evenly)
- Add one can tomato sauce, one diced tomato, and about 1 tsp salt/1 tsp pepper
- Let simmer until tomato sauce is no longer runny
- Scoop into zucchini bowls and top with mozzarella cheese (about 1/3c per bowl…probably 1/4c per bowl would do for regular sized zucchini)
- Bake at 375˚ for 30 minutes, or until cheese is lightly brown and zucchini is soft
- Serve and Enjoy!
We served ours with a pretzel roll and rice pilaf. A big plus to this recipe is that I was able to blanch and freeze the zucchini insides and remains for future zucchini bread and muffins!
And in case you’re wondering what happened with the cucumber…we sliced, lightly salted and served with feta cheese. An easy and delicious snack or side!!
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