Artichoke Stuffed Zucchini Boats

Last night's dinner was SO good. I can't wait to eat the leftovers tonight. Seriously. I am salivating at the thought of eating it.

Artichoke Stuffed Zucchini Boats

I made these Artichoke Stuffed Zucchini Boats (by the way, I finally can spell zucchini correctly without having to use the spell check! Hooray!). They take a little bit of prep work but are worth it!

Ingredients:
EVOO
4 medium zucchini
1 can artichoke hearts (I think it was about 13 ounces?)
1 cup orzo, cooked
3 cloves garlic
3 Tbsp bread crumbs (I used lemon pepper flavored)
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
1/3 cup tomato sauce
3-4 slices provolone cheese

Instructions:
First, you need to get your orzo cooking. Just follow the box instructions. Then, while that is cooking, cut the zucchini in half lengthwise, then scoop the innards out and put in a skillet. Chop up any larger pieces of zucchini guts so they are all bite-size or smaller. Take the zucchini boats and place in a 9x13 that has been sprayed with cooking spray. Lightly brush with EVOO on the tops and then bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes.

Take the artichoke hearts and drain them well, then chop them up and throw into the skillet with the zucchini guts (is that gross to call them that? You know what I'm talking about though, so it works). Take your garlic cloves and either chop into fine pieces or use your garlic crusher like me! Throw those in the mix. You're going to heat this mixture on the stove top for about 5 minutes until it starts to soften.

Remove from the heat and add the cooked orzo, bread crumbs, Parmesan and tomato sauce. Now, I can tell you that I used a lot more than 1/3 cup tomato sauce in this mixture because of my husbands preferences. I also had measured about 3/4 cup uncooked orzo, which led to more than a cup of cooked orzo. So I ate a few bites of it but I'm still pretty sure we had more than 1 cup cooked orzo. I just kinda cook what I want when I try recipes...ha.

Take the mixture and generously fill your zucchini boats (yeah, you needed to take them out of the oven when the 15 minutes timer went off. I assumed you knew). Once filled, take your provolone cheese and rip into smaller pieces, placing them on top of the zucchini boats. Place the 9x13 back in the 350 degree oven and let bake for about 20-25 minutes.

You will NOT regret trying this recipe. Yum-alicious!