Chorizo Stuffed Zucchini Boats

I don’t have kids, but I have a picky eater husband so its kind of the same thing. My husband, along with millions of kids I’m sure, is not a fan of vegetables. And unfortunately for him, I am. 

I was always told as a kid to eat your fruits and veggies if you wanted to grow up big and strong (or run faster at recess!).  I never really cared about the whole big and strong thing, but I was determined to be the fastest for rely races in PE class. In American cooking its pretty common to have a protein, starch and veggies at meal time. For example, meat, rice or potatoes and veggies on the side. Pretty standard meal right?

Well in Mexico that’s not the case. In Mexico (or at least in my husband’s family) its all too common to have meat, tortillas and beans as a meal. Where’s the veggies you might ask? Oh yeah, here they call that salsa. When you go to buy street tacos (I can, so I do!) they ask you if you would like verdura or vegetables. What they are really asking is if you would like cilantro and onion on your tacos. Some veggie packed tacos, huh?

Eating vegetables that aren’t pureed into a salsa, isn’t really a thing here, so getting my husband to eat veggies has taken some creativity to say the least.

Like a lot of moms have tried, hiding vegetables works once in a while. I used to make “special smoothies” and throw in some greens in there because you can’t even taste them at all. Only thing I forgot…is that he isn’t seven, so he wasn’t fooled by the green color when I told him it was “extra flavoring”.

I’ve tried disguising veggies.  Sometimes I like to mix things up and use lentils or veggies instead of ground meat. I’ll obviously add a little extra spices to it to add a little more flavoring. For me that’s a perfect substitute; for my husband, not so much. I once made cochinita tacos with shredded veggies instead of shredded meat.  He was a good sport, but definitely expressed his opinion on the values of traditional cochinita.

The best way that I have found to get my husband to eat veggies is being honest about them by keeping them in the open, just as they are, not disguised, and compromising by adding a little meat to them. Case in point, these chorizo stuffed zucchinis!

My husband ate these no problem because they had something that was still familiar to him, chorizo. By compromising and adding something that he enjoyed, he was much more willing to try these and said that he actually ENJOYED them! Challenge completed!!

The chorizo in these boats add a good spice and don’t require much doctoring. Just add the chorizo mixture to the zucchinis, top with a little cheese and that’s it!

This recipe is enough for two people…or just one if you’re really hungry.

Ingredients

• 1/2 pound chorizo
• 1/2 onion diced
• 2 roma tomatoes diced
• 2 medium zucchinis
• 2 cloves garlic minced
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• shredded cheese for topping

Directions

1. Add chorizo to a pan over low-medium heat, breaking it up as it cooks.
2. Add onion, tomatoes, garlic and spices. Cover and cook for about 10-15 minutes or until mixture is fully cooked, stirring occasionally.
3. Meanwhile, slice zucchinis in half lengthwise and spoon out middle and seeds.
4. Fill zucchini boats with chorizo mixture, top with cheese if desired (I know you want it!), and place in baking dish.
5. Cover with foil and bake at 400 degrees for 20-25 minutes.