Stuffed Zucchini and Eggplant

 For those of you who have an overabundance of zucchini and eggplant at this time of year, you should try this recipe.  My family absolutely went crazy for these.

 Cut medium sized zucchini into thirds.  Try to cut the bottoms as evenly as possible.  You will soon see why. Scoop out the insides leaving about 1/2 inch at the bottom.

 I made this up as I went along so you can improvise but I would do it as close to this recipe as possible because of how good they turned out.  This recipe made almost 30 stuffed zucchini and one large stuffed eggplant.  I think these would freeze well...I gave all but a couple away.  You can adjust the recipe according to how many you want to make.  I used 3 pounds of ground meat and 1 pound of salt and pepper sausage. I buy mine locally so if you can't find it, just use a sweet Italian sausage or a sage breakfast sausage.  Add additional salt and pepper.  Saute' diced onion and green pepper with black pepper and salt and 2 tsp of oregano in either bacon grease or a bit of butter just until it begins to soften.  Set it aside to cool and stir in 1 cup of corn, 6 grated garlic cloves and 2 diced tomatoes.  After this cools, mix it into the ground meat and sausage.  Add 1 sleeve of crushed Ritz crackers, 3 eggs, 3/4 cup of Parmesan cheese and 1/4 cup of milk.  Mix this very thoroughly and cook a small piece and taste it for seasoning.  Adjust as needed.

 Stuff each zucchini with a heaping amount of the filing.

 Don't they look nice and neat?  Cook at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes.

They don't look nice and neat for long. They quickly turn into zucchini Stonehedge.  Remove them from the oven and top with slices of provolone.  Use sliced cheese otherwise the cheese will just fall off.  I also sprinkled flaked asiago on top of the provolone. Return to the oven for an additional 20 minutes until they register 170 degrees on the inside.

 Once they have fallen over, they are pretty much impossible to sit upright.They taste just as good lying on their sides.

 Packed up and ready to go and be eaten elsewhere.

 As I said, I made about 30 of the zucchini and I still had leftover filling.  So, I cut an eggplant in half, scooped out a lot of the flesh leaving about 1/2 of eggplant then brushed it with olive oil and stuffed it with the remaining filling.  These obviously cooked longer, more like 40 minutes, then remove and add the cheese.

 Then back in the oven for about another 30 minutes.

 These would be great served with spaghetti.

 The zucchini's would be perfect on a buffet.

They are delicious and quite simple to make.