Date Night Dinners - Zucchini Rollups
This week's date night dinner ended in a bit of a disagreement. Don't worry, I am not about to make you all feel super awkward with all of our relationship disputes (not that we ever have those), I am merely trying to tell you that the taste of the dish had mixed results. While we were both pumped to try zucchini rollups this week, Brenden was only content with the end product while I wanted to gobble it all down in one sitting. I guess it worked out for me since I didn't have to fight Brenden off for the bigger portion this time.
I had found an amazing looking photo of the rollups on Pinterest months ago, and wanted to try it immediately. Unfortunately, it was not connected to a working link, and although I probably could have substituted and guestimated how the recipe worked, I was not ready to try such a complex wrapping process on my own (note: it is not complex at all, I just have a limited skill set in the kitchen). So I let the picture get buried among the hundreds of other recipes on my Pinterest board and moved on. That is, until this past week came. I was perusing the addictive sight for some more carb free meals I could entice Brenden with, when the image showed up again, and this time connected to a very useful recipe link.
We gathered the ingredients and set out to make the meal. I had made zucchini lasagna-esq recipes before, so I knew this dish wouldn't be too complicated, and it would be hard to make it taste bad. The hardest part for us would be wrapping the meat inside the zucchini. Brenden happily scooped bits of our meat mixture into our zucchini slices as I frustratingly tried not to burn my hands or break the zucchini slices as I wrapped. We definitely should have used longer zucchini to make our slices. We also should have used a peeler so that the slices would have been the length of our zucchini, rather then the grater I had used, which cut the slices short. Besides that little issue, which can easily be fixed for next time, the recipe was a breeze.
We cooked up the meat with all of our seasoning and ingredients, incorporated it with the zucchini, topped it of with some sauce and cheese, and popped it in the oven until it was time to eat. Brenden while he enjoyed them enough, was sad that the biggest flavors he tasted were tomatoes and zucchini...like last week, those prominent flavors seemed kind of obvious when glancing at the recipe, but oh well. I, on the other hand, was delighted with the result. I thought the flavors we chose blended together really well and to my surprise, the meat stayed nice and juicy. We used a merlot marinara sauce which I thought really gave the zucchini rollups that extra depth of flavor they needed to make me want to eat them all up.
Zucchini Rollups
Recipe adapted from lasvegasphotographercindylarkin.blogspot.com, Spinach Zucchini Ravioli
Ingredients
- 1 lb ground chicken
- 2 cups spinach, chopped
- 1/2 large onion, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Approximately 2 medium/large zucchini
- Marinara sauce to taste
- Mozzarella cheese as desired, shredded
- Slice zucchini into thin strip with a peeler or grater.
- In a large saute pan, combine the chicken, spinach, onion, garlic, salt and pepper.
- Saute on medium heat until the chicken is cooked through.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Lay 2 zucchini strips on a flat surface, next to each other with a slight overlap.
- Do the same with two more strips of zucchini, on top of the first two, crossing in the middle.
- Scoop a spoonful of the cooked turkey mixture into the center of the zucchini.
- Wrap the ends of the four slices of zucchini over the mixture in the middle.
- Place them face down, to help them remain closed/intact, in a glass backing dish.
- Repeat steps 5-9 until you have the desired amount of rollups or you run out of ingredients.
- Top with marinara sauce and cheese as desired.
- Bake in oven for about 30 minutes, until zucchini has softened.
- Remove, serve, and enjoy.
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