New Spin on Zucchini

I don’t love meat. Most days I can honestly say I don’t like meat, but sometimes I have a craving for a cheeseburger! In our home, I have a hard time coming up with dinner ideas because hubby is strickly a meat and potatoes kind of guy…He really doesn’t even like pasta (the horror!!!).

Since I don’t care to have meat, I have started to question why I feel the need to eat it every night for dinner when I could make myself a vegetarian dish while I am making hubby’s meat dish. The plus side, he will have extra leftovers for lunch the next day! I have done this for two nights now, and I can’t say that it has been all that hard. Yes, I did use an extra pan on the stovetop, but that’s not a biggie. As of now (Wednesday morning) I haven’t eaten any meat since Sunday dinner and I don’t miss it a bit! I am having lots of fun looking up recipes using beans and lentils….can’t wait to try them!!

Anyways, I had a zucchini that needed to be used up, so I came up with this idea for a sandwich. I made the same thing for hubby, but used pre-cooked meatballs instead of zucchini. These were so simple and very delicious!!!!

Zucchini Grinder

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large zucchini
salt and pepper to taste
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 small can of mushrooms (or fresh)
1 cup marinara sauce
1 1/2 cups shredded reduced fat mozzarella cheese
4 whole wheat mini sub buns

Preheat oven to 350*. Heat oil and garlic in a skillet over medium heat. Add zucchini and mushrooms, and cook until zucchini is slightly tender. Season with salt and pepper (or other seasonings of you liking), and stir in the marinara sauce. Cook and stir until the sauce it heated.

Line a 9×12 baking pan with foil. Open up sub buns and place on foil. Sprinkle a little bit of mozzarella in the bottom of each bun. Spoon a generous amount of zucchini mixture into each bun. Top with a handful of cheese. Cover pan loosley with foil. Bake for 15 minutes, until bread is heated through and cheese is melted.

***I did two seperate pans of sauce, one with zucchini and one with partially thawed, pre-cooked meatballs. I also baked them a little bit longer, just to make sure the meatballs were nice and hot. You could also wrap these individually in foil to bake, but I thought the cheese might stick to everything!

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