Chicken Zucchini Casserole

I recently made a huge discovery. The past couple of weeks have been really hot - over 100 every day. I like to grill when it's that hot so that I don't heat up the house even more with the oven, but there are days when I just want something baked for dinner. Like pizza. I make pizza at least every other week. So I got out my pizza stone and cooked it on the grill. I had heard of other people doing it, and it worked great. I put it right over the flames (it was taking too long on indirect heat, and I had 3 pizzas to cook), and it didn't burn at all. Then I had a thought - why not "bake" other things on the grill? I bought several stones from Pampered Chef years ago and rarely used them. So far I've successfully cooked zucchini casserole (which my family loves so much they literally lick the pan - see recipe below), eggplant parmesan, and even a beef pot pie with leftover roast beef, veggies and gravy. I wasn't sure if that one would work out, since it had a pie crust on top, but it came out flaky and perfect. Who knew? I just periodically adjust the flames to get the right temperature and rotate it several times; it takes about the same amount of time to cook, maybe even less. Dave said I shouldn't do all my baking on the grill because it costs more for the propane. But on these super hot days, it's an awesome alternative.

Here's the Chicken Zucchini Casserole recipe from Taste of Home. I made a few changes.

• 1 package (6 ounces) chicken stuffing mix
• 3/4 cup butter, melted (I use 1/2 cup butter and 1/4 cup milk)
• 3 cups zucchini, diced 
• 1 medium carrot, shredded
• 1-2 stalks celery, diced
• 1 small onion, chopped 
• 2 cups cubed cooked chicken breast
• 1 can (10-3/4 ounces) condensed cream of chicken soup, undiluted
• 1/2 cup sour cream

Directions

• In a large bowl, combine stuffing mix and butter and milk. Set aside 1/2 cup for topping. 
• Saute the zucchini, carrot, onion and celery. Mix with chicken, cream of chicken soup, sour cream and remaining stuffing mixture.
• Transfer to a greased 2-qt. baking dish. Sprinkle with reserved stuffing mixture. Bake, uncovered, at 350° for 40-45 minutes or until golden brown and bubbly. Yield: 6 servings.

Blueberry Zucchini Bread

This is my first ever post in this blog!  This can only mean one glorious thing: I've had time to cook, and the cooking has been good.

A friend of ours gave us a few zucchini from his garden - too many for us to consume in its pure form so I searched for zucchini bread recipes and found one from allrecipes.com that included blueberries - which we also just happened to have!  It was delicious and the blueberries proved to be a wonderful compliment to the zucchini bread.  Now, this recipe is for four mini-loafs, but I made one full loaf and one batch of muffins, so I had to sort of eye the cooking time and stagger them a bit.  Otherwise, I stuck to the original recipe and everyone who tried it (I brought the loaf into the costume shop because that much bread is just too tempting) loved it.  Next time I want to try to cut the oil and sugar by using applesauce, but this occasion was a "use-what-we-got-I-don't-want-to-leave-the-house-in-this-heat" kind of day.

Blueberry Zucchini Bread:

3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup vegetable oil
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups white sugar
2 cups shredded zucchini
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 pint fresh blueberries

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease 4 mini-loaf pans.
2. In a large bowl, beat together the eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar. Fold in the zucchini. Beat in the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon. Gently fold in the blueberries. Transfer to the prepared mini-loaf pans.
3. Bake 50 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a knife inserted in the center of a loaf comes out clean. Cool 20 minutes in pans, then turn out onto wire racks to cool completely.

Zucchini Grinders

I got this recipe from Allrecipes.com which has pretty much gotten me through being away from my cook books. I have made some changes to it (I think for the better) but if you are interested in the original recipe, you can check it out here.

2 zucchinis (or however many you need for the right volume)
touch of oil
green pepper, sliced
onion, sliced
clove of garlic, chopped
jar spaghetti sauce
fresh mozzarella, sliced
ciabatta bread

Heat the oil in a pan and saute the green peppers, onions and garlic. Add the zucchinis and cook until soft. Pour in the sauce and heat until heated through.

Meanwhile, cut open the bread and lay the cheese slices on one side (or two if you like a lot of cheese). Put on a cookie sheet and cook until the cheese melts. (I didn't really notice the temperature and you can use the broiler but watch it carefully.)

Once the cheese is melted, top with the zucchini mixture and serve. The cheese helps hold it together but it is still pretty messy. It would also be good with mushrooms in the mix. We like to have it with potato salad or the like.