From Our Kitchen: Chicken Enchilada Stuffed Zucchini Boats

We love the Mexican food in this house! Well, the Mexican food, and the Thai food, and the Indian food, and the Pizza food...well, you get it. At any rate, we really do love the Mexican food, and I have been on a mission for veggies, veggies, veggies in our lives, so when I stumbled upon this here recipe, I pinned away and mentally told myself to remember put the ingredients on my grocery list (spoiler alert: I remembered!). As always, I made some modifications (mostly in the form of being toooooootally lazy and not making my own enchilada sauce). This was so yummy, like ridiculously yummy, especially if you are like me and absolutely adore zucchini...you do, don't you? Okay, good! I apologize in advance - things were happening so quickly, I failed in some of my picture taking, and it smelled so good when I took it out of the oven, I totally forgot to take a final pic. Trust me, though, it turned out pretty and oh so yummy!

What You'll Need:

• 4 medium zucchini
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 1/2 yellow onion
• 3 cloves garlic (or two big heaping spoonfuls if, like yours truly, you buy the jarred garlic)
• 3 chicken breasts, cooked and shredded (I like to cook mine in the crockpot and then shred)
• 1 tsp. cumin
• 1 tsp. chili powder
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 3 tbsp chicken broth
• 1 tbsp tomato paste
• 1 can enchilada sauce
• shredded cheese
• salt and pepper, to taste

What You'll Do:

1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees, and spray a 9x13 pan with Pam. Begin boiling a large pot of water.
2. Cut zucchini in half lengthwise. Using a scooper, melon baller, or small spoon, scoop out the flesh to about 1/4 inch thick.
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. Chop the scooped flesh, and set aside.
4. Drop zucchini in boiling water. Blanch for 1-2 minutes, and remove from water. Set aside.
   
   
   
5. In a large pan, heat oil. Add onion and garlic. Cook until onion is translucent.
6. Add zucchini, salt and pepper. Cook about 4 minutes.
7. Add spices, broth, and tomato paste. Cook another 3 minutes.
   
8. Add cooked, shredded chicken. Cook 3 minutes.
9. Place 1/4 cup enchilada sauce in bottom of casserole dish.
10. Fill each zucchini boat with chicken mixture. Place in casserole dish.
    
    
    
11. Top each boat with enchilada sauce and shredded cheese.
12. Bake for 25 minutes.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    

From Our Kitchen: Zucchini Lasagna

We really love zucchini in this house, so when I found out several months ago that zucchini is an awesome substitute for pasta in our favorite pasta dishes, I was thrilled! We have made plenty of zucchini "pasta" dishes over the past year, but this was my first attempt at a zucchini lasagna. I adapted it from this recipe over at Skinnytaste.

What You'll Need:

• Pasta Sauce (the Skinnytaste recipe includes a pasta sauce, but we used Harris' homemade marinara sauce - my personal favorite sauce in the world, and vegetarian)
• 3 medium zucchini, sliced 1/8" thick
• 15 oz part-skim ricotta
• 16 oz shredded mozzarella cheese
• 1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
• 1 large egg

What You'll Do:

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Prepare your pasta sauce
3. Slice your zucchini into noodle-like strips. I personally use a vegetable peeler for my "noodles", and this works well!
4. Lightly salt the zucchini, and set aside for 10 minutes (this helps to absorb some of the water from the zucchini). After 10 minutes, blot with paper towel.
5. On a gas grill, or grill pan, cook each of your "noodles" for 1-2 minutes per side.
   
   
   
   
   
   
6. In a medium bowl, mix together ricotta and Parmesan cheeses and egg.
   
   
   
7. Spray a 9 x 13 dish, and spread some of your sauce on the bottom.
   
   
   
8.  Top with zucchini noodles, then ricotta mixture, and then mozzarella. Repeat until all of the noodles and ricotta mixture are used up. 
   
   
   
9. Top with sauce and more mozzarella.Cover in foil.
10. Bake for 45 minutes; uncover and bake an additional 15 minutes.
    
    
    
    Sorry that the last two pics are sideways - they were very uncooperative in changing positions!