Day 29, or "Huge Zucchini"

A while ago, Claudiu's sisters dropped off an enormous zucchini from their garden. It sat in the fridge forgotten until yesterday, when we decided to cook something with it. I know from experience that large zucchinis sometimes don't taste very good (they tend to get bitter and stringy), so my first instinct was to bake some muffins or bread out of it. But Claudiu got my attention when he sent me this link for stuffed zucchinis. Neither of us wanted to try to locate millet in a German grocery store, though, so I looked around and found this one, which uses couscous--something I already had. I decided to combine the two and and create my own recipe. 

Earlier in the day, I spontaneously purchased 500 grams of green beans. I'm going to be honest and say that I still don't fully understand those little metric weight units. In other words, 500 grams is a whole freaking lot of green beans. Oops. But I wanted to try the shallot and green bean recipe my friend Katie recommended a while ago. Delicious!

Check out the size of that zucchini!!

Mediterranean Couscous Stuffed Zucchinis

Ingredients:

1 large or 2 medium zucchinis

1 cup couscous

2.5 cups vegetable broth 

large handful chopped, pitted kalamata olives

1/4 cup capers

1 can diced tomatoes

3 tbsp fresh parsley (I used frozen)

a few generous shakes of several types of dried herbs and spices (I used basil, oregano, sweet paprika, black pepper, and herbed salt)

2+ tsbp olive oil

1 medium yellow onion (I used a shallot)

Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

To prepare couscous: Bring vegetable broth to a boil. Add couscous, stirring once. Remove from heat and cover. Let stand 10 minutes. Fluff with a fork. 

To prepare zucchini: Wash and remove stem. Cut zucchini in half lengthwise and place in a large pot, flat side down. Cover zucchinis halfway with water. Bring to a boil, cover and let simmer for 5 minutes. Place zucchinis on a plate and let cool. Once cool enough to work with, scoop out the pulp. If the zucchini is large, try to remove most of the seeds from the pulp. Chop the pulp and reserve.

Meanwhile, heat olive oil in a large skillet. Add onion (or shallot) and sauté two to three minutes. Add parsley and herbs; sauté one minute. Carefully add the tomatoes, juice included, to the pan (it might splatter) and the zucchini pulp. Finally, add the olives and capers. Remove from heat. 

Add couscous to the tomato mixture and mix well. 

Place zucchinis on a baking sheet and fill with couscous mixture, mounding slightly in the middle. 

Bake in the oven for 20 minutes. If you're not vegan, I'd recommend broiling some cheese on the top at the end, or grating some fresh parmesan over the top once its out of the oven:

Katie's Green Beans with Shallots

Ingredients:

500 grams? of green beans

3 shallots

3 tbsp olive oil

salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Directions: Wash and trim the ends off of the green beans. Boil for three minutes, and then plunge into ice water to stop the cooking and preserve color. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add shallots to pan and sauté 3 minutes. Add green beans and cook until beans are heated through, about 3-4 minutes. Season generously with salt and pepper.