Stuffed Zucchini In Tomato Sauce Or Kousa Recipes

Steps:

• Choose either medium or small zucchini. Wash well cut of stem end. Using a corer hollow out zucchini leaving rounded end intact. Try not to puncture the skin. Soak in salted water for 10 minutes.
• Gently fry onion in butter until transparent. Add pine nuts after 10 minutes cook with onions for another 10 minutes, stir occasionally.
• Add pan contents to ground meat, rice parsley, spice and about a teaspoon of salt and pepper and 1/4 cup of water if need to be easy to work with (I don't add water).
• Fill zucchini with stuffing. (The rice expands and the meat will shrink so fill them all the way).
• Prepare the sauce: in a frying pan gently fry chopped onion in butter. When transparent add chopped garlic cook for a few seconds and chopped peeled tomatoes, tomato paste, water and cinnamon with salt and pepper to taste.
• Ladle some of the sauce into the bottom of a heavy based pan, arrange zucchini in layers adding sauce to each layer, you may have 2-3 layers of zucchini. Or I stand them up on end with the open side up (again DH tells me this is not the "proper" way to do it but if they burn then only the one end is ruined).
• Add enough water to just cover the zucchini with sauce, you may or may not need to do this depending on how much sauce you have.
• Cover and simmer gently for 1 1/4 hours or until veggies are tender and rice is cooked.
• Serve hot or warm with sauce and Arabic pita bread for dipping.

Steps:

• Split the zucchini in half. Scoop out the center flesh/pulp, leaving a shell about a quarter-inch thick. Reserve the pulp.
• Drop the zucchini shells into cold water and bring to a boil. Simmer for 30 seconds. Drain and run under cold running water.
• In a skillet, heat half of the oil and add the onion, garlic, green pepper and the reserved pulp. Cook, stirring, about 5 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste, and oregano. Remove from heat and briefly cool.
• Stir in the pork, pine nuts, egg and four tablespoons of the bread crumbs. Blend well with hands. Stuff the squash with this mixture. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Blend remaining bread crumbs and the grated cheese and sprinkle over the stuffed zucchini, then dribble with the remaining oil.
• When ready to cook, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Bake the stuffed zucchini, uncovered, for 30 minutes. Serve with fresh tomato sauce.
• Fresh Tomato Sauce:.
• Prepare the tomatoes and set them aside.
• Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the onion and garlic and cook briefly. Add the wine and reduce the liquid by one-half. Add the tomatoes, basil, salt and pepper, and cook for five minutes.
• Use a blender or food processor to blend to a puree. Return the puree to the saucepan, reheat and serve.