I love seasonal vegetables and fruits – zucchini, corn, tomatoes & cherries in the summer; squashes in the fall; citrus fruit in the winter.  I feel like my body actually craves seasonal ingredients as the weather changes each year.  Trying to eat up as much of the last of summer’s seasonal foods (can’t believe I’m actually talking about summer ending, ew), I want to share some awesome zucchini recipes…

I went a little overboard with this first one…literally.  I made zucchini boats stuffed with a delicious vegetarian mixture and they were so full, they tipped over mid-baking.  Still tasted really good though!

Vegetarian Stuffed Zucchini

• 1 large zucchini halved, seeds and flesh scooped out
• 1/4 cup dry quinoa, rinsed and cooked (simmer in 1/2 cup water until water is evaporated)
• 4 vegetarian meatballs (I love TJ’s Meatless Meatballs)
• zucchini guts, chopped (whatever you scooped out)
• 1/4 cup jarred tomato sauce
• 1 tbs freshly grated parmesan cheese
• Salt & pepper

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.  First, start by halving your zucchini lengthwise and using a spoon to gently scoop out the seeds and flesh to form “boats”.

Next, mix together the cooked quinoa, meatless meatballs, zucchini guts and half of the measured tomato sauce.  Season with salt & pepper.

My delicious stuffing didn’t quite fit into the zucchini (note to self: buy bigger zucchini next time)…

After filling each zucchini with the quinoa mixture, top with the remaining tomato sauce and the parmesan cheese.  I piled the extra stuffing in between the pieces of zucchini and thought it actually helped to hold them up in the baking dish. 

Bake for 20 minutes…

and really don’t worry if yours turns into more of a mess than it appeared to be when it went into the oven (see right zucchini boat for evidence of overstuffage/tipping over).  The quinoa mixture that baked outside of the zucchini was actually really great because it developed a yummy, crusty topping…and once you eat all of the lone quinoa out of the dish, you cut into the zucchini and see this:

still beautiful, despite being overstuffed. 

I have another zucchini recipe coming tomorrow so be sure to come back!  I’ll give you a hint: it’s something sweet.  Can you guess what it might be??

It’s been consistently 90 degrees and about 500% humidity (bad hair day anyone??) in NY – so yea, it’s pretty weird that I wanted to turn on my oven and my stove last night and make a hot, cheesy baked pasta.  But it’s what I wanted, so it’s what I made.

Ironically my hot dinner was inpsired by my freezer.  I like to keep Italian turkey sausages in the freezer – they come in very handy.  You can grill one and add it to sauteed peppers and onions, slice one to top your pizza or crumble it and add to pasta.  I also love to keep these in my freezer – pop one out and add it to anything…no stinky hands from chopping fresh garlic!

Last night I went for the turkey sausage/pasta combo -

Turkey Sausage Pasta Bake (serves 1)

• 1/2 cup chopped zucchini
• 1/2 cup chopped button mushrooms
• 1 crushed garlic clove
• 1 Italian turkey sausage link (sweet or spicy), crumbled
• 1-2 oz whole wheat pasta (shape of your choice!)
• 1/4 cup jarred tomato sauce
• 1 oz mozzerella cheese (equal to one string cheese stick)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Cook the pasta according to package instructions. 

While the oven is heating and the pasta is boiling, heat a pan sprayed with olive oil over medium-high heat and add the turkey sausage.  Cook for a few minutes until the sausage begins to brown.  Lower the heat to medium and add the veggies and garlic. Season with salt & pepper.  Saute together for 5 more minutes to combine the flavors and allow the veggies to soften.

Drain your cooked pasta and add to a small baking dish coated with cooking spray.  Top with the sausage/veggie mixture, the tomato sauce and top with cheese. 

Bake for 10-15 minutes or until the cheese is gooey and melted.  I also broiled mine for a few minutes at the end to get that crispy baked pasta topping. 

Dig in!

The shells were a perfect pasta shape for this – they held in all of the yummy goodness of the veggies and sausage.  I cleaned that casserole dish…yum!  Totally worth raising the temperature of my apartment with my oven to make this. 

Also, don’t forget about the free shipping offer on OpenSky until August 16th!  Just use the coupon code FREESHIPPING at checkout.

Do you ever crave hot food when it’s hot out?

Cupcakes ruled out cake for the bf’s birthday treat this year for a few reasons, the primary one being that I wanted to use my handy dandy cupcake carrier.  Yes, I find it completely necessary to fill up an entire cabinet in my tiny apartment’s kitchen with a cupcake carrier.  :-)

I decided to tackle a Martha recipe for Chocolate Chip Cupcakes…of course being a Martha recipe, it was a little complicated and a little time consuming but totally worth it.  I made minor adjustments to the recipe and it came out perfect.

Chocolate Chip Cupcakes (makes 30 cupcakes)

• 3 1/4 cups sifted cake flour (not self-rising)
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 3/4 (7 oz) unsalted butter at room temp
• 1 3/4 cups sugar
• 1 cup plus 2 tbs unsweetened vanilla almond milk
• 1 tbs pure vanilla extract
• 5 large egg whites
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Mix together the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl and set aside.  Cream together the butter and sugar with a mixer on medium-high speed until light and fluffy.

Then add the almond milk and vanilla – do not be alarmed by the consistency of the batter (it looks really weird but I assure you it’s fine).  Slowly add the dry ingredients in 3 batches, mixing to combine after each addition.

Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form and carefully fold them into the batter.

Once the egg whites are incorporated, fold in the chocolate chips.

Pour the batter into lined cupcake pans, filling each 2/3 fill (a 1/4 cup measure is a good tool for filling the pans).

Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.

Once the cupcakes have cooled, frost them with a quick chocolate chip buttercream.  I made enough to frost about 2/3 of the cupcakes (I like to save unfrosted cupcakes for snacking or to freeze for a rainy day).

• 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 lb confectioners sugar
• 1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1 cup mini semisweet chocolate chips

The mini chips are the key in the frosting.

Just to make sure they weren’t poison…

The cupcake itself is so moist and perfectly studded with chocolate – and of course what could be bad about buttercream with more chocolate.  Make these for someone special and they will love you for it.  And so will their friends who get to eat the extras.  :-)

I feel like a broken record saying I’ve had a busy summer – lots of traveling to fun places on the weekends which has meant not a lot of grocery shopping or cooking during the week.  But, healthy eating during the week is one of the keys to balancing my fun weekends so I really try to make it a priority.

This past week was mission: use up everything in my fridge.

• Vidalia onion
• Yellow bell pepper
• Tomato
• Mushrooms
• Avocado
• Corn tortillas
• Tiny hunk of cheddar cheese

With this random list of ingredients, I came up with three great, different meals!

Night #1: First, I sliced the vidalia onion and the bell pepper and sauteed them.  They became the base for each meal.  So picture some peppers and onions in a pan – here’s what happened…

I removed 1/2 cup of the onion & pepper mixture and diced it.  Then, I foraged in the freezer to get rid of some frozen veggies that had probably been in there for too long

I made some succotash, using frozen okra & corn and half of the fresh tomato mixed with the diced onions & peppers.

I loosely followed a recipe from Cooking Light but it didn’t turn out that great honestly, so I’m not going to share – is anyone else not into the sliminess of okra??

Anyway, the sliced onions and peppers are still in the pan, remember?  Half goes into a container and into the fridge.  Half stays in the pan and mushrooms are added with a sprinkle of chili powder and cumin and then into the fridge.

Night #2: After broiling two corn tortillas in the oven for a few minutes, top them with the mushroom mixture and the cheese and broil again until the cheese is melted – tostadas!  With an avocado boat on the side (just diced avocado, tomato, lime juice and sea salt tossed and put back in the avocado shell).

Night #3: And the rest of the onions and peppers?  Just tossed with a grilled Italian turkey sausage, also from the depths of my freezer.  :-)

And that is how a random list of ingredients turned into some yummy dinners!

This coming weekend is all about celebrating the bf’s birthday – I’ll be whipping up a yummy birthday treat for him but can’t reveal what it is yet (in case he reads).    Will share later.  ;-)