I Stuffed You, I Baked You, I Eated You!
I’ve been thinking about Baked Stuffed Zucchini ever since Rooms brought them up last month. My vegetarian GF has already made this a couple of times, mostly because when she asks me what she should cook for dinner, it’s the only thing I can think of that doesn’t have bacon. So I decided to give it a go myself last week.
I followed Rooms’ basic instructions, mixing it up with what I had in my fridge, and ending up with a spicy, Asian take on the stuffed zukes. The outside part is the same at Rooms:
– Cut your zucchinis in half. Rub them with extra virgin and salt and pepper, then bake at 400 for about 10 minutes.
Then I got a little crazy…
-First I fried up a handful of panko bread crumbs in oil.
– I had a cup of steamed white rice leftover so I threw that in with the bread crumbs along with three cloves of chopped garlic. (Hey, I may cheat, but when I have real garlic, I bring it.)
– Added in a tablespoon of sriracha chili sauce.
– This is where I may lose some of you. The sriracha made it just a little bit too spicy, so I was looking around for something to sweeten it out a little bit and provide some balance. There was half a bag of shredded coconut in the fridge. I thought twice and decided against it. Then thought three times and had to do it, throwing just a little bit of coconut in with the rice mixture.
– Scooped this all into the zuke halves and topped with goat cheese. Baked for another twenty minutes.
Delicious! The coconut actually added just the right amount of sweetness and fried up, it had a nice little crunch. Baked zucchini may become my go-to leftover dish – you can fry up anything left in your fridge and throw it in these things!
you lost me at goat cheese actually. I understand using the coconut in an asiany flavored dish, but goat cheese is way outta left field.
i can’t get into shredded coconut, but i was at the Mt. Pleasant Day festival/Hispanic Month Celebration and i saw at one of the stands someone hacking off the top of a coconut and sticking a straw into it. kinda want to try that.
Was the coconut cooked or left raw. When it’s raw it tastes like shredded paper to me, but it tastes okay cooked. I can’t drink the water straight outta a coconut, gansie… it just tastes bad. Of course the last time I tried it I was a little girl, so it’s possible that my taste buds have matured since then.
Not to be all rah-rah lamo girlfriend, but I think if I had been there BS would have said “Coconut and goat cheese?” and I would have said, “Ew, no,” and then he would have said “really?” and I would have thought for a second and shrugged and gone, “Ok, sure I guess,” and then it would have been delicious. This often happens when BS wants to put weird things together. So, I would say don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.
But then again, I am a fan of both coconut and goat cheese.
I am also a fan of coconut juice and fresh coconut, but it’s def an acquired taste.
The first time I saw somebody chopping the top of a coconut and sticking a straw in it was at the 9th Avenue Food Festival many years ago – but the guy also added a secret ingredient: rum.