Baby Boxing and Zucchini

The week before K was born, while I had still been procrastinating on the coming home outfit, a friend stopped by with a baby gift. One of the items in the bag was the most adorable NB size onesie with a fluffy black tutu. There was no question about it, that was going to be part of K's coming home ensemble. She outgrew the onesie about 5 months ago (after wearing it as often as I could wash it) but I haven't been able to bring myself to pack it up and put it away. I've been planning for some time now to make a shadow box so I can display it with the rest of the little things I want to keep from the hospital but shadow boxes are so expensive! Yesterday, we took a trip to Michael's so I could get a hot glue gun to start creating the decorations for a certain friend's July baby shower when I just happened to walk by the shadow box section in search of the hot glue gun aisle. I'm so glad I did! The store had a pretty decent selection of clearance shadow boxes. $6.99 instead of $36.99? SOLD! Two napping babies this morning (I'm babysitting today) gave me enough time to create my shadow box and blog about it. I am one happy camper today. We've decided to turn the wall along the stairs leading to the third floor into "K's Wall." By the end of the year, I'm sure it will be covered in far too many pictures to hold any more. I'm obsessed with my child and I can admit it. The plan is to have all different styles and colors of frames so when I saw a mahogany shadow box with a black background, I was quite pleased. I do most of my frame shopping at the Dollar Tree and I haven't seen any frames in anything close to mahogany. The shadow box didn't take long to create, either, which is a huge plus. I'm debating whether to change the onesie so the arms are crossed across the front or to place the headband that she wore home on a diagonal across the front of the onesie. Until I make that decision, which may never happen, I'll just display it how it is.

Yesterday, I mentioned the zucchini that inspired the homemade pasta sauce. I halfed and hollowed out that sucker, stuffed it up and baked it for dinner last night. The hubs had never had stuffed zucchini before but he was quite pleased with it. It's pretty easy to make, the only really time consuming part is carving out the inside of the zucchini. I suppose you could use a melon baller but, because I don't have one, I just use a spoon. I also suppose you could stuff it any old way you want. I think it would be quite delicious with taco meat, onions, enchilada sauce, chili peppers and cheddar cheese. Use my recipe for dinner or use it for inspiration but definitely try a stuffed zucchini. The best part is that the kiddos can help fill the zucchini and top it with cheese which might make it more interesting for them to try.

Stuffed Zucchini (Italian Style) (Zucchini Boats)

-1 large zucchini

-1 cup pasta sauce

-1 cup ground Italian sausage, cooked (if not using pasta sauce with sausage in it)

-1/2 onion, diced

-1/2 bell pepper, diced

-2 (at least) garlic cloves, minced

-1/2 cup cooked brown rice (or bread crumbs or small pasta like orzo, optional)

-1/2 cup (or more) shredded/grated cheese (I like Parmesan)

-1-2 TBS olive oil

 Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. 

Saute peppers, onion and garlic in olive oil until soft. Stir in pasta sauce, rice and sausage. Cut zucchini in half lengthwise. Hollow out the two halves and fill with sauce mixture. Top with cheese. Bake at 350 degrees with 30-40 minutes for a slightly crisp zucchini or 50-60 minutes for a soft zucchini.