What is Steff-stainability?

Living sustainably, my way. It's thinking about what you are putting into your body and how it affects you. But it's also indulging in a brownie cheesecake every now and then. It's making your body look the way you want it to and being proud of it. But it's not spending half of the day working out. It's about making small changes in your life to benefit the great earth on which we live. But it's also running your A/C in the summer and driving your car. It's about setting goals and living up to them. It's trying to make the world a better place. And as I am ever-learning and ever-changing, so is this definition.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Answers and Awesome Stuffed Zucchini

My dear friend Sonya at Sonya Ruth Photography left a comment the other day, asking if it's ok to work out twice a day. After some research, I finally have an answer.

You can work out twice a day, as long as you pace yourself and it's not every day. Your body will be too worn out for you to effectively exercise if you keep it up for too long. According to Kristie Leong, M.D., and Jeff Bayer, fitness specialist, if you work out twice in one day, you should take the next day off. If you don't, your muscles won't have enough time to rebuild themselves to get an effective workout. Leong also recommends doing a 20-30 minute cardio session in the morning and 20-30 min resistance training/weights/toning in the afternoon or evening. For more on twice-a-day workouts, see askmen.com or ehow.com


Now! Onto my super yummy stuffed zucchini recipe. I got the idea for this recipe when I went to the farmers market a few weeks ago; someone I bought some zucchini from handed out recipes, and they handed me one for stuffed zucchini. This recipe, in my opinion, looked bland and boring, but it put the idea in my head that I could stuff zucchini with something wonderful! Then I checked allrecipes.com and found a recipe that had some more elements to it I could use. The one major flaw with this recipe is that it didn't use and herbs or seasonings, which can make it quite boring. So after reading what some people did to spice up the recipe, I came up with my own version of stuffed zucchini. One of my favorite things about this recipe is that you can make it super healthy if you want, or you can make it a little indulgent. Enjoy!

Ingredients
One very large zucchini
1.5 lbs of ground meat - I like to do half 93% lean ground beef and half spicy italian sausage. You can still get the flavor of the sausage if you do less, and be more healthy
Two fresh tomatoes, chopped
1 red onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
Fresh Parsley, thoroughly chopped
Fresh Basil, roughly chopped
1 egg
1 15 oz can tomato sauce
Parmesan cheese
Mozzarella cheese
Breadcrumbs

Preheat the oven to 350
1. Cut the zucchini in half lengthwise. Take a spoon and scoop out the seeds. DO NOT DISCARD THE SEEDS!
2. Brown the meat in a frying pan. I also sprinkle some dried parsley, basil, oregano, thyme, and salt and pepper over the meat as it's browning. Especially do this if you are using more ground beef than sausage.
3. Transfer the meat to a large mixing bowl. If you used sausage, make sure to drain the fat off the meat in a strainer or with a slotted spoon before transferring it.
4. Saute the onion and garlic in a small amount of vegetable oil until the onion starts to become translucent, then transfer to the bowl as well.
5. Chop the zucchini insides you saved in step one. Transfer to bowl along with the tomatoes, basil, and parsley.
in this picture, you can see (starting at the top and going clockwise) the chopped zucchini insides, minced garlic, red onion, and chopped tomato.

6. Add the egg and tomato sauce to the bowl, along with some salt and pepper, and a few dashes of the parmesan cheese. (If you are going healthier, you can omit the cheese from this step)
7. Mix everything up until all the ingredients are covered in the tomato sauce and egg, and everything is thoroughly mixed together.
8. Place the zucchini halves onto a baking sheet covered in foil. Scoop the contents of the bowl into the zucchini halves. It will probably run over onto the foil.
9. Sprinkle some mozzarella, parmesan, and breadcrumbs on top.
10. Place in oven and cook for 35-40 minutes, until zucchini is soft and cheese starts to brown. Be sure to let it cool for a few minutes before eating it!

This is big enough to feed 4 people. I hope you try this one, it's my favorite recipe I've posted so far!

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