Several weeks ago (now), we had our good neighborhood friends over for a 3-course dinner: stuffed zucchini, lemon risotto with Asian chicken thighs, and a raspberry cake dessert.

The first course was my favorite, and one I’ve done at least 5 times now. The secret is to stuff the zucchini with a variety of chopped Italian deli meats (mortadella, sopressata, salami, etc.), breadcrumbs, garlic, and parmesan cheese. To stretch what I had this time, I also added back a little bit of what was scooped out of the zucchini. A balsamic glaze completes the picture after they’ve roasted and toasted in the oven.

This combination was less successful. I somehow botched the lemon risotto this time, I am not sure how. The chicken got good reviews. It was tossed with a Joe’s Market-brand sauce (from Ukrop’s) after spending some time in the oven, along with some chopped herbs. The chicken thighs were marinated in a variety of spicy sauces from the Tan-A Asian market.

These were already cut into the right sizes from the Fresh Market. Yum. It was worth it, as making this from scratch was beyond my energy level.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 9th, 2008 at 5:33 pm and is filed under In the Kitchen. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.