The end of the summer is growing near 🙁 boo! I’m almost sick of yellow squash and zucchini – almost! When the end of the summer draws near vegetables in the garden start to produce less often and I tend to forget to harvest them regularly. This means that there will inevitably be a few zuchinni and summer squash that we’ll forget to pick and will grow HUGE. What can you do with a giant zuchinni or yellow squash? I’d imagine there are multiple things; however, the skins get tougher and the seeds get too hard to cook through. Take a look – this is a GIANT summer squash!
If it were the beginning of summer and I was drooling for fresh produce then maybe I would steam them up. But it’s the end of the summer and I have multiple giant summer squash (these are actually from my brother), and too many tomatoes to eat so I’m stuffing them. These are so good that I might just start letting my zucchini and squash grow bigger on purpose! As always, this post may include affiliate links. If you haven’t read my disclosure, please read it here.
End of the Garden Stuffed Yellow Squash (or Zucchini)
Ingredients:
2 large zucchini or summer/yellow squash
1 lb ground beef
3 cups cooked white rice (if you don’t have one I would recommend getting a rice cooker like this one – Rice Cooker, 6 cup (cooked)
1 cup red pepper, chopped
1 cup green pepper, chopped
1 cup onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tbsp oil
3 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
2 tsp fresh oregano (or 1 tsp dry oregano)
1 tsp fresh thyme (optional)
4 cups tomatoes, chopped
1 can tomato sauce
1 tbsp sugar (optional)
Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Chop the stem and blossom end off your zucchini/squash, then cut it in half. Scrape out and discard the seeds. Place the hollowed out squash into a glass baking dish and bake for about 10 minutes (or until slightly tender). While it’s cooking, saute the peppers, onions, and garlic in 1 tbsp of oil in a large saute pan. When the onions are translucent, set the pepper mixture aside and brown the ground beef in the same pan, drain off fat.
In a large bowl, combine cooked rice, ground beef, 2 cups tomatoes, parlsey, thyme, oregano and sauteed peppers. Fill each zucchini/squash with the mixture. Add the remaining 2 cups of tomatoes, tomato sauce, 1 tbsp sugar to the saute pan and simmer for 10 minutes until thickened slightly. Pour over the stuffed squash and pop in the oven at 400 degrees for about 25 minutes. If you’re not dairy free you can top it with mozzarella cheese like my husband and pop it back in the oven for 5 more minutes to melt.
AND Here I am digging in! So good!
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