Baked stuffed zucchini

On Friday night, I had friends over for dinner while their kitchen is being renovated.  On the menu was Jamie Oliver's Asian-flavoured version of cook-in-the-bag chicken, an old favourite of mine from his Happy Days tour (not the leek and mushroom one that is all over the web), followed by Long and Slow Apples from French Fridays with Dorie.

My friends grow vegetables, so I was the recipient of a very large zucchini.  You can't generally buy zucchini that big, so I thought I would try something new - stuffed zucchini.  A quick Google search later, and I came up with this recipe.  The only changes that I made were to substitute the lamb mince for beef mince, the rosemary for tarragon (I couldn't buy rosemary at the supermarket - how weird is that?), and the parmesan for Dutch smoked that I had in the fridge.

I really enjoyed the end result - it was a hearty meal that didn't take ages to prepare, and used up the entire zucchini.  I think I would add a touch of chilli next time to make the filling sing, but recommend this as a nice change.  My interest in stuffed vegetables is now piqued, and on the same night  that I made this, I saw Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall make baked butternut squash which looked equally delicious - perhaps another dish to add to my repertoire.