Besides being healthful, adaptable, and wallet friendly, this recipe is a great make ahead meal. You can make your turkey filling ahead of time and store it in the fridge. When you’re ready to make your stuffed zucchini, just pull out your pre-made turkey filling, prep your zucchini into boats and stuff the boats with your turkey mixture. Pop them in the oven at 375° and cook until completely warmed through.
Stuffed Zucchini
Makes 6 Zucchini Boats
3 Zucchini, halved lengthwise & cored to create boats. I use a small spoon to core my zucchini, ensuring that I leave enough of the vegetable in tact around the bottom and the edges to hold the filling. Also, reserve the core to use in the filling! No reason to waste perfectly good zucchini…
¾ lb. ground turkey meat
1 c precooked brown rice
½ small sweet onion, diced
3 cloves of garlic
2 tsp Italian Seasoning
S&P to taste
Preheat oven to 375° Fahrenheit
Sauté onion and garlic until soft. Add the ground turkey and seasonings to the onion mixture and cook until the turkey is almost cooked through; stir in the rice and the reserved zucchini cores. Place zucchini boats on a baking sheet and stuff the boats with the turkey filling that you’ve created.
Bake your boats for approximately 25 minutes or until the filling has slightly browned.
I am lucky to be a Californian where avocado never seems to go out of season, as this dressing is my “go-to” on many occasions. On busy weeknights, I toss this with some kale salad and dinner is served, but I’ve also been known to cut up fresh mango with diced red onion, Serrano pepper, and cilantro and use this as the dressing for a spicy-sweet fruit salad. Your imagination is the limit with this deliciously creamy dressing.
Avocado “Dressing”:
1 soft, ripe avocado
½ lemon, juiced
1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
S&P to taste
Mash the avocado into the bottom of your salad bowl. Squeeze ½ a lemon’s juice into the mashed avocado and add the extra virgin olive oil. Mash to combine, season to taste. Add any salad greens, noodles, veggies…that you would like and toss to coat.
