Bats, that’s what. Baseball bats. Humongous baseball bat-sized zucchini that you can’t imagine could have grown in just four days. Let alone three of them. What the heck? Where did these come from? Obviously you’re blind, you tell yourself, they must have been hiding under a leaf. Lots of leaves. Whatever. Now you have them, so what to do? Zucchini bread and zucchini cake are obvious choices, and you can also scoop out some of the insides of these mongo zucchinis, stuff the zucchini shells, and bake them. Which is exactly what we’ve done here. This stuffed zucchini recipe is somewhat of a gardener’s paradise. If you are growing zucchini, you are also likely growing tomatoes and basil. We make pesto with our excess of basil, and we pick cherry tomatoes from our plants all summer long. The stuffing for this recipe is just freshly made croutons and Mozzarella cheese, tossed with basil pesto, some grated Parmesan, a few chopped cherry tomatoes, and toasted pine nuts. A perfect summer garden meal. Enjoy! Lay out in a single layer cook, without moving the croutons, until one side is lightly browned, then toss and let cook a little more so a few more sides get a little brown. Remove from pan and let cool to touch. When they start to brown, remove them from the pan into a small bowl. Pour a cup or so of water into the bottom of the roasting pan (so that zucchini doesn’t dry out on the outside), to about 1/4 inch depth. Bake for 45 minutes at 375°F. **In this recipe we are not using the zucchini flesh that we have scooped out. You can easily freeze it for later use with zucchini recipes such as zucchini bread, zucchini muffins, or zucchini cake. Or you can chop some of it up and mix it in with the stuffing mixture. Penne Pasta with Zucchini and Basil Pesto from Kalyn’s Kitchen Zucchini Pesto Lasagna from The Bojon Gourmet
