Cheesy Bacon and Corn Stuffed Zucchini

Yep.  This was good.  A little too good, but that isn’t surprising when you see what goes into it.  If you’re looking for a way to use up some more of the summer zucchini from your garden, this recipe is for you.  Or, if you’re like me and don’t have a summer garden, but you have a grocery store or farmers market that sells zucchini grown by people who are much better gardeners than you are, well…then it’s for you too.

I’d pinned this recipe a while back on Pinterest, and finally got around to trying it last night.  Now I’m sad I waited so long, but I have a new side dish to put into rotation, as my entire family thought they were pretty great.

I started by bringing a big pot of water to a boil on the stove top, and then I added in my zucchini, uncut.

I gave them about five minutes to hang out in their little spa.  Then I removed them from the water, rinsed them with some cold water to cool them down a bit, and then sliced each zucchini in half.  I scooped out the seeds, and then placed them on a baking sheet that I’d lined with parchment paper.

I set the zucchini boats aside and got to working on my filling.  First up, the bacon.  I sizzled eight strips of bacon in my skillet until they were nice and crisp.

Once they were perfectly crumble-able, I removed the bacon slices to a plate lined with paper towel to let them drain for few minutes.  Then, to the bacon grease in the pan I added my corn kernels and a couple of cloves of garlic that I’d minced up.

Once that had cooked down for a few minutes (and made my kitchen smell ridiculously good), I added a block of low-fat cream cheese to the corn mixture and cooked it over the heat until it had melted and was mixed in well.

Once the cheese was in, I seasoned the corn with salt and pepper, and then added in that bacon, all crumbly and crisp.

See?  I told you. Tasty stuff.

Once the bacon was mixed in, I scooped the mixture into my zucchini halves.  Before I popped them under the broiler for a few minutes, I sprinkled them with a little bit of paprika.

After about six minutes under the broiler, the zucchini were ready to go, and we were ready to dive in.  The zucchini was perfectly tender, and the cheesy-bacon-corn filling is a tasty reminder that sometimes, you just really need to add the bacon.  I served them alongside grilled flank steak and we were all pretty happy that I’d finally gotten around to trying this little recipe.  Good stuff.

CHEESY BACON AND CORN STUFFED ZUCCHINI

Adapted from Diethood.com