giant stuffed zucchini

A friend of mine brought me the largest zucchini I've ever seen from her garden. It was as big as a small watermelon. I had just picked up some (more demure) zucchinis at the farmer's market so I had a lot of zucchini to work with. Where to begin?

First I sliced the giant squash in half lengthwise and scooped out the meat. I then placed the shells upside-down on a pan with a little bit of water and placed them in the oven at 325.

Meanwhile I sauteed some garlic and polenta, watering down the polenta with a little broccoli broth (see last week's post). When that was nice and soft I added the scooped out zucchini meat, salt and pepper and basil to taste. Setting that aside I sauteed some shitake mushrooms and added half of them to the polenta mixture. Shitakes are strong in flavor so you can always substitute mellow flavored button mushrooms or even black or green olives, sweet onions or arugula if you're not a big fan of the mushroom. Opening the oven, dumping any leftover water and, flipping the zucchini shells over, I stuffed them with the polenta/mushroom mixture and stuck them back in the oven. At this point, if you like cheese, you can add some fresh parmesan on top. yum.

Meanwhile I took a cucumber slicer and sliced my more demure zucchinis into paper thin strips, added them to the leftover mushrooms with a teensy bit of sweet vermouth and oregano and sauteed them together for a couple minutes.

It sounds strange to serve a side dish containing the same general ingredients as the main entree but because of the different textures it worked!