Family Dinner Night - 2

Last night was another wonderful family dinner night with my girlfriends - there is the family you are given, and then there is the family of friends you choose!

Six fabulous women around a candle filled table in my back yard sharing great conversation, amazing dinner, lovely wine, and some "oh my goodness" cookies with port for dessert. Our menu this night was Italian stuffed zucchini boats, herb salad, gluten free rustic olive bread, and maple bacon chocolate chip cookies.

The recipe for the zucchini boats was inspired by this recipe that is meat free. We changed and added a few things to make them more of a main dish. Our recipe serves 6 to 8 depending on the hunger level of your guests - and it can easily be halved or increased.

INGREDIENTS:
8 medium zucchini
2 good quality Italian sweet sausage, cooked and crumbled
8 garlic cloves, minced
1 can no salt petite diced tomatoes, drained
2 cups finely chopped fresh mushrooms
2 T dried Italian herbs
1 T crushed red pepper flakes (or more to taste)
grated Parmesan cheese


DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven to 400° degrees F.

1) Remove sausage casings, cook sausage over medium heat, breaking up as you cook to yield fine crumbles. Drain and set aside.

2) Cut zucchini in half lengthwise; scoop out pulp and seeds, leaving 1/4-inch shell. Reserve pulp from 4 zucchini and chop. (We used a mini food chopper for this and to chop the mushrooms).

3) Combine sausage, zucchini pulp, garlic, tomatoes, mushrooms, Italian herbs, & crushed red pepper flakes in a large bowl.

4) Divide mixture among zucchini shells. Place stuffed zucchini on a baking sheet; sprinkle with Parmesan cheese, & bake for 20 - 25 minutes or until zucchini is tender.

5) Gather some great friends, open a bottle if red, sit back and enjoy!

Here is a merlot we opened that was a perfect pairing to our zucchini:

 

Check back tomorrow -  I'll post about the the AWESOME maple bacon chocolate chip cookies which are gluten free and refined sugar free!

The verdict...

Family Dinner Night was OUTSTANDING! The company was delightful, the soup was excellent, and the brownies were not too bad! Plus the weather was nice enough we dined alfresco - which is good because my patio farm house table seats 6 adults way more comfortably than our tiny indoor table.

THE SOUP: we made some modifications to the original recipe due to some food allergies of our "family" members. One friend is allergic to dairy and citrus, I am so sad for her! So, for the meatballs we left out the lime juice and served lime wedges on the side. And we substituted 1/2 a cans worth of diced green chilies for the pepper jack cheese. Another friend is allergic to avocados, like really REALLY allergic, so we didn't even slice into them. Can I just say... I LOVED this soup! LOVED IT! The most time consuming part was the meatballs but it was oh so worth it! I can see maybe making up a triple batch of them, browning them, and freezing the extra for another time. And maybe making the meatballs smaller too. They were 2 -3 bites each and a smaller meatb all would make for mour refined eating with company. ;-) I will definitely be adding this to our regular rotation of soups!

THE BROWNIES: these were ok. I made some modification to the original recipe. I substituted granular maple sugar for the white sugar. I like the deep but less sweet flavor of the maple sugar, and it is less processed than white sugar, which is something I'm trying to reduce in our diet. I also added some coffee extract which always helps in intensifying the chocolate flavor in my opinion.

So... what went wrong you ask? Well, I'm going to go back and measure my pan - I think I used a 9 x 9 instead of 8 x 8. The brownies were thin and a tad dry in my opinion and the size of the pan may have been the cause. I might try date paste as the sweetener next time instead of the maple sugar. Date paste should still give it that rich deep flavor, plus add extra moistness and more sweetness that most people expect in a brownie. That said, my husband said he liked them - he liked that they were less sweet and thus had a deeper chocolate flavor. And when I told him the were completely grain free and made with black beans, we was shocked.

CONCLUSION: make the soup. Tonight. I mean it. TO-NIGHT!! But take a pass on the brownies. If you are really curious, stop by my place, I have left overs you can try.  Although, I'm not done messing with the recipe. I'm going to see if I can make these work. You may see "Black Bean Brownies, Part Two" in the near future!

(Here is a photo of my husbands 2nd bowl. My 1st AND 2nd helping was gone before I remembers to take a picture, it was THAT good!)

Family Dinner Night...

Just over two years ago, we started Family Dinner Night. My husband had a standing gig on Tuesday nights that left me on my own to take care of dinner, bath, and bed time for our girls who at that time were almost 2 and almost 1. A few of my dear friends took pity on me and started coming over each week. They'd help me feed the girls, play with them in the bath, get them in their pjs, and read bedtime stories. Once my sweet babies were sleeping, we'd finish making our yummy adult dinner, crack open a bottle of much deserved wine, and sit down for some girl talk over a wonderfully gourmet meal! One of them started referring to our Tuesday nights as Family Dinner Night, and so it was!

My husband no longer has a Tuesday night commitment AND we've had a third baby, so we haven't gotten together as regularly. But we definitely all look forward Family Dinner Nights and it is something we're trying to get back to doing more often. We've even started a group pin board on Pinterest for future meal ideas.

 Well... tonight IS a Family Dinner Night! Woohoo! We will be making a delicious looking Meatball Tortilla Soup by Ree Drummond (aka The Pioneer Woman) and a Pinterest recipe I tweaked just a bit for Black Bean Brownies. And no wine tonight - Mexican food calls for beer!  Though none for me, I'm still nursing.  Check back in with me tomorrow to find out how it all turned out - I'll also share the brownie recipe if the Family likes them!